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THE 

FOUNDATIONS    OF    BELIEF 

BEING 

NOTES    INTRODUCTORY    TO    THE 

STUDY    OF    THEOLOGY 


r    THE 


FOUNDATIONS   OF   BELIEF 

BEING 

NOTES    INTRODUCTORY    TO     THE 
STUDY    OF    THEOLOGY 


BY   THE 

RIGHT    HON.  ARTHUR   JAMES   BALFOUR 

AUTHOR   OF    'A   DEFENCE   OK    PHILOSOPHIC   DOUBT  '    ETC. 


SIXTH   EDITION 


LONGMANS,     GREEN,     AND     CO. 

LONDON,    NEW    YORK,    AND    BOMBAY 
1896 

All    rights    reserved 


\l 


//-2  11 


CONTENTS 


PRELIMINARY 


PAGE 

I 


PART   I 

SOME  CONSEQUENCES  OF   BELIEF 

CHAPTER 

I  Naturalism  and  Ethics 

II.  Naturalism  and  ^Esthetic 

III.  Naturalism  and  Reason 

IV.  Summary  and  Conclusion  of  Part  I    . 


-"• 


PART   II 
some  reasons  for  belief 

I.    The  Philosophic  Basis  of  Naturalism    ...  89 

II.    Idealism;  after  some  recent  English  Writings  137 

III.  Philosophy  and  Rationalism 156 

IV.  Rationalist  Orthodoxy 175 


n  CONTENTS 

PART  III 

SOME  CAUSES  OF   BELIEF 
:hapter  page 

I.    Causes  of  Experience 185 

II.    Authority  and  Reason 194 


PART  IV 

suggestions  towards  a  provisional  philosophy 

I.    The  Groundwork  233 

II.    Beliefs  and  Formulas 251 

III.  Beliefs,  Formulas,  and  Realities       .        .        .    .  263 

IV.  'Ultimate  Scientific  Ideas' 280 

V.    Science  and  Theology 290 

VI.    Suggestions  towards  a  Provisional  Unification  321 


NOTE 

Part  II.,  Chapter  II.,  of  the  following  Essay  ap- 
peared in  1893  in  the  October  number  of  'Mind.' 
Part  I.,  Chapter  I.,  was  delivered  as  a  Lecture  to 
the  Ethical  Society  of  Cambridge  in  the  spring  of 
1893,  and  subsequently  appeared  in  the  July 
number  of  the  'International  Journal  of  Ethics'  in 
the  present  year.  Though  published  separately,  both 
these  chapters  were  originally  written  for  the  pre- 
sent volume.  The  references  to  '  Philosophic 
Doubt '  which  occur  from  time  to  time  in  the  Notes, 
especially  at  the  beginning  of  Part  II.,  are  to  the 
only  edition  of  that  book  which  has  as  yet  been 
published.  It  is  now  out  of  print,  and  copies  are 
not  easy  to  procure  ;  but  if  I  have  time  to  prepare 
a  new  edition,  care  will  be  taken  to  prevent  any 
confusion  which  might  arise  from  a  different  num- 
bering of  the  chapters. 

I  desire  to  acknowledge  the  kindness  of  those 
who  have  read  through  the  proof-sheets  of  these 
Notes  and  made  suggestions  upon  them.  This 
somewhat  ungrateful  labour  was  undertaken  by  my 
friends,  the   Rev.  E.   S.  Talbot,  Professor  Andrew 


viii  NOTE 

Seth,  the  Rev.  James  Robertson,  and  last,  but  very 
far  from  least,  my  brother,  Mr.  G.  W.  Balfour,  M.P., 
and  my  brother-in-law,  Professor  Henry  Sidgwick. 
None  of  these  gentlemen  are,  of  course,  in  any  way 
responsible  for  the  views  herein  advocated,  with 
which  some  of  them,  indeed,  by  no  means  agree.  I 
am  the  more  beholden  to  them  for  the  assistance 
they  have  been  good  enough  to  render  me. 

A.  J.  B. 

Whittingehame,  September  1894. 


PRELIMINARY 

As  its  title  imports,  the  following  Essay  is  intended 
to  serve  as  an  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Theology. 
The  word  '  Introduction,'  however,  is  ambiguous  ; 
and  in  order  that  the  reader  may  be  as  little  disap- 
pointed as  possible  with  the  contents  of  the  book, 
the  sense  in  which  I  here  use  it  must  be  first 
explained.  Sometimes,  by  an  Introduction  to  a 
subject  is  meant  a  brief  survey  of  its  leading  prin- 
ciples— a  first  initiation,  as  it  were,  into  its  methods 
and  results.  For  such  a  task,  however,  in  the  case 
of  Theology  I  have  no  qualifications.  With  the 
growth  of  knowledge  Theology  has  enlarged  its 
borders  until  it  has  included  subjects  about  which 
even  the  most  accomplished  theologian  of  past  ages 
did  not  greatly  concern  himself.  To  the  Patristic, 
Dogmatic,  and  Controversial  learning  which  has 
always  been  required,  the  theologian  of  to-day  must 
add  knowledge  at  first  hand  of  the  complex  his- 
torical, antiquarian,  and  critical  problems  presented 
by  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  of  the  vast  and 
daily  increasing  literature  which  has  grown  up  around 
them.      He  must  have  a  sufficient  acquaintance  with 

B 


2  PRELIMINARY 

the  comparative  history  of  religions  ;  and  in  addi- 
tion to  all  this,  he  must  be  competent  to  deal  with 
those  scientific  and  philosophical  questions  which 
have  a  more  profound  and  permanent  bearing  on 
Theology  even  than  the  results  of  critical  and 
historical  scholarship. 

Whether  any  single  individual  is  fully  compe- 
tent either  to  acquire  or  successfully  to  manipulate 
so  formidable  an  apparatus  of  learning,  I  do  not 
know.  But  in  any  case  I  am  very  far  indeed  from 
being  even  among  that  not  inconsiderable  number 
who  are  qualified  to  put  the  reader  in  the  way  of 
profitably  cultivating  some  portion  of  this  vast  and 
always  increasing  field  of  research.  The  following 
pages,  therefore,  scarcely  claim  to  deal  with  the  sub- 
stance of  Theology  at  all.  They  are  in  the  narrowest 
sense  of  the  word  an  '  introduction '  to  it.  They 
deal  for  the  most  part  with  preliminaries  ;  and  it  is 
only  towards  the  end  of  the  volume,  where  the 
Introduction  begins  insensibly  to  merge  into  that 
which  it  is  designed  to  introduce,  that  purely  theo- 
logical doctrines  are  mentioned,  except  by  way  of 
illustration. 

Although  what  follows  might  thus  be  fitly  de- 
scribed as  '  Considerations  preliminary  to  a  study  of 
Theology,'  I  do  not  think  the  subjects  dealt  with 
are  less  important  on  that  account.  For,  in  truth, 
the  decisive  battles  of  Theology  are  fought  beyond 
its  frontiers.  It  is  not  over  purely  religious  contro- 
versies that  the  cause  of  Religion   is  lost  or  won. 


PRELIMINARY  3 

The  judgments  we  shall  form  upon  its  special 
problems  are  commonly  settled  for  us  by  our  general 
mode  of  looking  at  the  Universe  ;  and  this  again,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  determined  by  arguments  at  all,  is 
determined  by  arguments  of  so  wide  a  scope  that 
they  can  seldom  be  claimed  as  more  nearly  con- 
cerned with  Theology  than  with  the  philosophy  of 
Science  or  of  Ethics. 

My  object,  then,  is  to  recommend  a  particular 
way  of  looking  at  the  World-problems  which, 
whether  we  like  it  or  not,  we  are  compelled  to  face. 
I  wish,  if  I  can,  to  lead  the  reader  up  to  a  point  of 
view  whence  the  small  fragments  of  the  Infinite 
Whole,  of  which  we  are  able  to  obtain  a  glimpse,  may 
appear  to  us  in  their  true  relative  proportions. 
This  is,  therefore,  no  work  of  '  Apologetics '  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  that  word.  Theological  doctrines 
are  not  taken  up  in  turn  and  defended  from  current 
objections  ;  nor  is  there  any  endeavour  here  made 
specifically  to  solve  the  '  doubts '  or  allay  the  '  diffi- 
culties '  which  in  this,  as  in  every  other,  age 
perplex  the  minds  of  a  certain  number  of  religious 
persons.  Yet,  as  I  think  that  perhaps  the  greater 
number  of  these  doubts  and  difficulties  would  never 
even  present  themselves  in  that  character  were  it 
not  for  a  certain  superficiality  and  one-sidedness  in 
our  habitual  manner  of  considering  the  wider 
problems  of  belief,  I  cannot  help  entertaining  the 
hope  that  by  what  is  here  said  the  work  of  the 
Apologist  proper  may  indirectly  be  furthered. 


4  PRELIMINARY 

It  is  a  natural,  if  not  an  absolutely  necessary 
consequence  of  this  plan,  that  the  subjects  alluded  to 
in  the  following  pages  are,  as  a  rule,  more  secular 
than  the  title  of  the  book  might  perhaps  at  first 
suggest,  and  also  that  the  treatment  of  some  of 
them  has  been  brief  even  to  meagreness.  If  the 
reader  is  tempted  to  complain  of  the  extreme  con- 
ciseness with  which  some  topics  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance are  touched  on,  and  the  apparent  irrele- 
vance with  which  others  have  been  introduced,  I 
hope  he  will  reserve  his  judgment  until  he  has  read 
to  the  end,  should  his  patience  hold  out  so  long. 
If  he  then  thinks  that  the  '  particular  way  of  looking 
at  the  World-problems  '  which  this  book  is  intended 
to  recommend  is  not  rendered  clearer  by  any  por- 
tion of  what  has  been  written,  I  shall  be  open  to  his 
criticism  ;  but  not  otherwise.  What  I  have  tried  to 
do  is  not  to  write  a  monograph,  or  a  series  of 
monographs,  upon  Theology,  but  fco  delineate,  and,  if 
possible,  to  recommend,  a  certain  attitude  of  mind); 
and  I  hope  that  in  carrying  out  this  less  ambitious 
scheme  I  have  put  in  few  touches  that  were  super- 
fluous and  left  out  none  that  were  necessary. 

If  it  be  asked, '  For  whom  is  this  book  intended  ? ' 
I  answer,  that  it  is  intended  for  the  general  body  of 
readers  interested  in  such  subjects  rather  than  for  the 
specialist  in  Philosophy.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean 
that  I  have  either  desired  or  been  able  to  avoid 
questions  which  in  essence  are  strictly  philosophical. 
Such   an  attempt  would  have  been  wholly  absurd. 


PRELIMINARY  5 

But  no  knowledge  either  of  the  history  or  the  tech- 
nicalities of  Philosophy  is  assumed  in  the  reader,  nor 
do  I  believe  that  there  is  any  train  of  thought  here 
suggested  which,  if  he  thinks  it  worth  his  while,  he 
will  have  the  least  difficulty  in  following.  He  may, 
and  very  likely  will,  find  objection  both  to  the  sub- 
stance of  my  arguments  and  their  form.  But  I 
shall  be  disappointed  if,  in  addition  to  their  other 
deficiencies,  he  finds  them  unintelligible  or  even 
obscure.1 

There  is  one  more  point  to  be  explained  before 
these  prefatory  remarks  are  brought  to  a  conclusion. 
In  order  that  the  views  here  advocated  may  be  seen 
in  the  highest  relief,  it  is  convenient  to  exhibit  them 
against  the  background  of  some  other  and  contrasted 
system  of  thought.  What  system  shall  that  be  ? 
In  Germany  the  philosophies  of  Kant  and  his  suc- 
cessors may  be  (I  know  not  whether  they  are) 
matters  of  such  common  knowledge  that  they  fit- 
tingly supply  a  standard  of  reference,  by  the  aid  of 
which  the  relative  positions  of  other  and  more  or 
less  differing  systems  may  be  conveniently  deter- 
mined. As  to  whether  this  state  of  things,  if  it 
anywhere  exists,  is  desirable  or  not,  I  offer  no  opinion. 
But  I  am  very  sure  that  it  does  not  at  present  exist 
in  any  English-speaking  community,  and  probably 
never  will,  until  the  ideas  of  these  speculative  giants 
are    throughout    rethought    by     Englishmen,    and 

1  These  observations  must  not  be  taken  as  applying  to  Part  II., 
Chapter  II.,  which  the  general  reaaer  is  recommended  to  omit. 


6  PRELIMINARY 

reproduced  in  a  shape  which  ordinary  Englishmen 
will  consent  to  assimilate.  Until  this  occurs  Tran- 
scendental Idealism  must  continue  to  be  what  it  is 
now — the  intellectual  possession  of  a  small  minority 
of  philosophical  specialists.  Philosophy  cannot,  under 
existing  conditions,  become,  like  Science,  absolutely 
international.  There  is  in  matters  speculative,  as  in 
matters  poetical,  a  certain  amount  of  natural  pro- 
tection for  the  home-producer,  which  commentators 
and  translators  seem  unable  altogether  to  over- 
come. 

Though,  therefore,  I  have  devoted  a  chapter  to 
the  consideration  of  Transcendental  Idealism  as 
represented  in  some  recent  English  writings,  it  is 
not  with  overt  or  tacit  reference  to  that  system  that 
I  have  arranged  the  material  of  the  following  Essay. 
I  have,  on  the  contrary,  selected  a  system  with  which 
I  am  in  much  less  sympathy,  but  which  under  many 
names  numbers  a  formidable  following,  and  is  in 
reality  the  only  system  which  ultimately  profits  by 
any  defeats  which  Theology  may  sustain,  or  which 
may  be  counted  on  to  flood  the  spaces  from  which 
the  tide  of  Religion  has  receded.  Agnosticism, 
Positivism,  Empiricism,  have  all  been  used  more  or 
less  correctly  to  describe  this  scheme  of  thought ; 
though  in  the  following  pages,  for  reasons  with 
which  it  is  not  necessary  to  trouble  the  reader,  the 
term  which  I  shall  commonly  employ  is  Naturalism. 
But  whatever  the  name  selected,  the  thing  itself  is 
sufficiently  easy  to  describe.   For  its  leading  doctrines 


PRELIMINARY  7 

are  that  we  may  know  '  phenomena ' 1  and  the  laws 
by  which  they  are  connected,  but  nothing  more. 
'  More '  there  may  or  may  not  be ;  but  if  it  exists 
we  can  never  apprehend  it :  and  whatever  the 
World  may  be  '  in  its  reality  '  (supposing  such  an 
expression  to  be  otherwise  than  meaningless),  the 
World  for  us,  the  World  with  which  alone  we  are 
concerned,  or  of  which  alone  we  can  have  any 
cognisance,  is  that  World  which  is  revealed  to  us 
through  perception,  and  which  is  the  subject-matter 
of  the  Natural  Sciences.  Here,  and  here  only,  are 
we  on  firm  ground.  Here,  and  here  only,  can  we 
discover  anything  which  deserves  to  be  described  as 

1  I  feel  that  explanation,  and  perhaps  apology,  is  due  for  this  use 
of  the  word  '  phenomena.'  In  its  proper  sense  the  term  implies,  I 
suppose,  that  which  appears,  as  distinguished  from  something,  pre- 
sumably more  real,  which  does  not  appear.  I  neither  use  it  as  carrying 
this  metaphysical  implication,  nor  do  I  restrict  it  to  things  which 
appear,  or  even  to  things  which  could  appear  to  beings  endowed  with 
senses  like  ours.  The  ether,  for  instance,  though  it  is  impossible  that 
we  should  ever  know  it  except  by  its  effects,  I  should  call  a  pheno- 
menon. The  coagulation  of  nebular  meteors  into  suns  and  planets  I 
should  call  a  phenomenon,  though  nobody  may  have  existed  to  whom 
it  could  appear.  Roughly  speaking,  things  and  events,  the  general 
subject-matter  of  Natural  Science,  is  what  I  endeavour  to  indicate  by 
a  term  for  which,  as  thus  used,  there  is,  unfortunately,  no  substitute, 
however  little  the  meaning  which  I  give  to  it  can  be  etymologically 
justified. 

While  I  am  on  the  subject  of  definitions,  it  may  be  as  well  to  say 
that,  generally  speaking,  I  distinguish  between  Philosophy  and  Meta- 
physics. To  Philosophy  I  give  an  epistemological  significance.  I 
regard  it  as  the  systematic  exposition  of  our  grounds  of  knowledge. 
Thus,  the  philosophy  of  Religion  or  the  philosophy  of  Science  would 
mean  the  theoretic  justification  of  our  theological  or  scientific  beliefs. 
By  Metaphysics,  on  the  other  hand,  I  usually  mean  the  knowledge  that 
we  have,  or  suppose  ourselves  to  have,  respecting  realities  which  are 
not  phenomenal,  e.g.  God,  and  the  Soul. 


3  PRELIMINARY 

Knowledge.  Here,  and  here  only,  may  we  profit- 
ably exercise  our  reason  or  gather  the  fruits  of 
Wisdom. 

Such,  in  rough  outline,  is  Naturalism.  My  first 
task  will  be  the  preparatory  one  of  examining  certain 
of  its  consequences  in  various  departments  of  human 
thought  and  emotion  ;  and  to  this  in  the  next  four 
chapters  I  proceed  to  devote  myself. 


PART    I 

SOME    CONSEQUENCES    OF    BELIEF 


CHAPTER   I 

NATURALISM    AND    ETHICS 

I 

The  two  subjects  on  which  the  professors  of  every 
creed,  theological  and  anti-theological,  seem  least 
anxious  to  differ,  are  the  general  substance  of  the 
Moral  Law,  and  the  character  of  the  sentiments 
with  which  it  should  be  regarded.  That  it  is 
worthy  of  all  reverence ;  that  it  demands  our 
ungrudging  submission  ;  and  that  we  owe  it  not 
merely  obedience,  but  love — these  are  common- 
places which  the  preachers  of  all  schools  vie  with 
each  other  in  proclaiming.  And  they  are  certainly 
right.  Morality  is  more  than  a  bare  code  of  laws, 
than  a  catalogue  raisonnd  of  things  to  be  clone  or 
left  undone.  Were  it  otherwise,  we  must  change 
something  more  important  than  the  mere  customary 
language  of  exhortation.  The  old  ideals  of  the 
world  would  have  to  be  uprooted,  and  no  new  ones 
could  spring  up  and  nourish  in  their  stead  ;  the  very 
soil  on  which  they  grew  would  be  sterilised,  and  the 
phrases  in  which  all  that  has  hitherto  been  regarded 


12  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

as .  best  and  noblest  in  human  life  has  been  ex- 
pressed, nay,  the  words  '  best '  and  '  noblest '  them- 
selves, would  become  as  foolish  and  unmeaning  as 
the  incantation  of  a  forgotten  superstition. 

This  unanimity,  familiar  though  it  be,  is  surely 
very  remarkable.  '  And  it  is  the  more  remarkable 
because  the  unanimity  prevails  only  as  to  con- 
clusions, and  is  accompanied  by  the  widest  diver- 
gence of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  premises  on 
which  these  conclusions  are  supposed  to  be  founded. 
Nothing  but  habit  could  blind  us  to  the  strangeness 
of  the  fact  that  the  man  who  believes  that  morality 
is  based  on  a  priori  principles,  and  the  man  who 
believes  it  to  be  based  on  the  commands  of  God, 
the  transcendentalist,  the  theologian,  the  mystic, 
and  the  evolutionist,  should  be  pretty  well  at 
one  both  as  to  what  morality  teaches,  and  as  to 
the  sentiments  with  which  its  teaching  should  be 
regarded. 

It  is  not  my  business  in  this  place  to  examine 
the  Philosophy  of  Morals,  or  to  find  an  answer  to 
the  charge  which  this  suspicious  harmony  of  opinion 
among  various  schools  of  moralists  appears  to 
suggest,  namely,  that  in  their  speculations  they  have 
taken  current  morality  for  granted,  and  have  squared 
their  proofs  to  their  conclusions,  and  not  their  con- 
clusions to  their  proofs.  I  desire  now  rather  to 
direct  the  reader's  attention  to  certain  questions 
relating  to  the  origin  of  ethical  systems,  not  to  their 
justification  ;  to  the  natural  history  of  morals,  not  to 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  13 

its  philosophy  ;  to  the  place  which  the  moral  law 
occupies  in  the  general  chain  of  causes  and  effects, 
not  to  the  nature  of  its  claim  on  the  unquestioning- 
obedience  of  mankind.  I  am  aware,  of  course,  that 
many  persons  have  been,  and  are,  of  opinion  that 
these  two  sets  of  questions  are  not  merely  related, 
but  identical  ;  that  the  validity  of  a  command 
depends  only  on  the  source  from  which  it  springs  ; 
and  that  in  the  investigation  into  the  character  and 
authority  of  this  source  consists  the  principal  busi- 
ness of  the  moral  philosopher.  I  am  not  concerned 
here  to  controvert  this  theory,  though,  as  thus 
stated,  I  do  not  agree  with  it.  It  will  be  sufficient 
if  I  lay  down  two  propositions  of  a  much  less 
dubious  character: — (1)  That,  practically,  human 
beings  being  what  they  are,  no  moral  code  can  be 
effective  which  does  not  inspire,  in  those  who  are 
asked  to  obey  it,  emotions  of  reverence;  and  (2)  that, 
practically,  the  capacity  of  any  code  to  excite  this  or 
any  other  elevated  emotion  cannot  be  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  the  origin  from  which  those  who  accept 
that  code  suppose  it  to  emanate.1 

Now  what,  according  to  the  naturalistic  creed,  is 
the  origin  of  the  generally  accepted,  or,  indeed,  of  any 
other  possible,  moral  law  ?  What  position  does  it 
occupy  in  the  great  web  of  interdependent  pheno- 

1  These  are  statements,  it  will  be  noted,  not  relating  to  ethics 
proper.  They  have  nothing  to  do  either  with  the  contents  of  the 
moral  law  or  with  its  validity ;  and  if  we  are  to  class  them  as  be- 
longing to  any  special  department  of  knowledge  at  all,  it  is  to  psy- 
chology or  anthropology  that  they  should  in  strictness  be  assigned. 


r4  NATURALISM   AND    ETHICS 

mena  by  which  the  knowable  '  Whole '  is  on  this 
hypothesis  constituted  ?  The  answer  is  plain.  As 
life  is  but  a  petty  episode  in  the  history  of  the 
universe  ;  as  feeling  is  an  attribute  of  only  a  frac- 
tion of  things  that  live,  so  moral  sentiments  and  the 
apprehension  of  moral  rules  are  found  in  but  an 
insignificant  minority  of  things  that  feel.  They  are 
not,  so  to  speak,  among  the  necessities  of  Nature  ;  no 
great  spaces  are  marked  out  for  their  accommodation ; 
were  they  to  vanish  to-morrow,  the  great  machine 
would  move  on  with  no  noticeable  variation  ;  the 
sum  of  realities  would  not  suffer  sensible  diminution ; 
the  organic  world  itself  would  scarcely  mark  the 
change.  A  few  highly  developed  mammals,  and 
chiefest  among  these  man,  would  lose  instincts  and 
beliefs  which  have  proved  of  considerable  value  in 
the  struggle  for  existence,  if  not  between  individuals, 
at  least  between  tribes  and  species.  But  put  it  at 
the  highest,  we  can  say  no  more  than  that  there 
would  be  a  great  diminution  of  human  happiness, 
that  civilisation  would  become  difficult  or  impossible, 
and  that  the  '  higher '  races  might  even  succumb  and 
disappear. 

These  are  considerations  which  to  the  '  higher  ' 
races  themselves  may  seem  not  unimportant,  how- 
ever trifling  to  the  universe  at  large.  But  let  it  be 
noted  that  every  one  of  these  propositions  can  be 
asserted  with  equal  or  greater  assurance  of  all  the 
bodily  appetites,  and  of  many  of  the  vulgarest  forms 
of  desire  and  ambition.     On  most  of  the  processes, 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  15 

indeed,  by  which  consciousness  and  life  are  maintained 
in  the  individual  and  perpetuated  in  the  race  we  are 
never  consulted ;  of  their  intimate  character  we  are 
for  the  most  part  totally  ignorant,  and  no  one  is  in 
any  case  asked  to  consider  them  with  any  other 
emotion  than  that  of  enlightened  curiosity.  But  in 
the  few  and  simple  instances  in  which  our  co-opera- 
tion is  required,  it  is  obtained  through  the  stimulus 
supplied  by  appetite  and  disgust,  pleasure  and  pain, 
instinct,  reason,  and  morality  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  see, 
on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis,  whence  any  one  of 
these  various  natural  agents  is  to  derive  a  dignity  or 
a  consideration  not  shared  by  all  the  others,  why 
morality  should  be  put  above  appetite,  or  reason 
above  pleasure. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  replied  that  the  sentiments 
with  which  we  choose  to  regard  any  set  of  actions  or 
motives  do  not  require  special  justification ;  that 
there  is  no  disputing  about  this  any  more  than  about 
other  questions  of  'taste,'  and  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  persons  who  take  a  strictly  naturalistic  view 
of  man  and  of  the  universe  are  often  the  loudest 
and  not  the  least  sincere  in  the  homage  they  pay  to 
the  'majesty  of  the  moral  law.'  This  is,  no  doubt, 
perfectly  true  ;  but  it  does  not  meet  the  real  diffi- 
culty. I  am  not  contending  that  sentiments  of  the 
kind  referred  to  may  not  be,  and  are  not,  frequently 
entertained  by  persons  of  all  shades  of  philosophical 
or  theological  opinion.  My  point  is,  that  in  the  case 
of  those  holding:  the  naturalistic  creed  the  sentiments 


TJNI'V 


16  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

and  the  creed  are  antagonistic  ;  and  that  the  more 
clearly  the  creed  is  grasped,  the  more  thoroughly 
the  intellect  is  saturated  with  its  essential  teaching, 
the  more  certain  are  the  sentiments  thus  violently 
and  unnaturally  associated  with  it  to  languish  or  to  die. 
For  not  only  does  there  seem  to  be  no  ground, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  biology,  for  drawing  a 
distinction  in  favour  of  any  of  the  processes,  physio- 
logical or  psychological,  by  which  the  individual  or 
the  race  is  benefited ;  not  only  are  we  bound  to 
consider  the  coarsest  appetites,  the  most  calculating 
selfishness,  and  the  most  devoted  heroism,  as  all 
sprung  from  analogous  causes  and  all  evolved  for 
similar  objects,  but  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the 
august  sentiments  which  cling  to  the  ideas  of  duty 
and  sacrifice  are  nothing  better  than  a  device  of 
Nature  to  trick  us  into  the  performance  of  altruistic 
actions.1  The  working  ant  expends  its  life  in  labour- 
ing, with  more  than  maternal  devotion,  for  a  progeny 
not  its  own,  and,  so  far  as  the  race  of  ants  is  con- 
cerned, doubtless  it  does  well.  Instinct,  the_jn- 
herited  impulse  to  follow  a  certain  course  with  no 
developed  consciousness  of  its  final  goal,  is  here  the 
instrument  selected  by  Nature  to  attain  her  ends. 
But  in  the  case  of  man,  more  flexible  if  less  certain 
methods  have  to  be  employed.  Does  conscience, 
in    bidding  us  to  do  or  to    refrain,  speak    with    an 

1  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  state  that  in  following  the  precedent 
set  by  Darwin  I  do  not  wish  to  suggest  that  Biology  necessarily  is 
teleological.     Naturalism  of  course  cannot  be. 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  17 

authority  from  which  there  seems  no  appeal  ?  Does 
our  blood  tingle  at  the  narrative  of  some  great 
deed?  Do  courage  and  self-surrender  extort  our 
passionate  sympathy,  and  invite,  however  vainly, 
our  halting  imitation  ?  Does  that  which  is  noble 
attract  even  the  least  noble,  and  that  which  is 
base  repel  even  the  basest  ?  Nay,  have  the  words 
'  noble  '  and  '  base  '  a  meaning  for  us  at  all  ?  If  so, 
it  is  from  no  essential  and  immutable  quality  in  the 
deeds  themselves.  ( It  is  because,  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  the  altruistic  virtues  are  an  advantage  to 

o 

the  family,  the  tribe,  or  the  nation,  but  not  always 
an  advantage  to  the  individual ;  it  is  because  man 
comes  into  the  world  richly  endowed  with  the 
inheritance  of  self-regarding  instincts  and  appetites 
required  by  his  animal  progenitors,  but  poor  indeed 
in  any  inbred  inclination  to  the  unselfishness  neces- 
sary to  the  well-being  of  the  society  in  which  he 
lives ;  it  is  because  in  no  other  way  can  the  original 
impulses  be  displaced  by  those  of  late  growth  to  the 
degree  required  by  public  utility,  that  Nature,  in- 
different to  our  happiness,  indifferent  to  our  morals, 
but  sedulous  of  our  survival,  commends  disinterested 
virtue  to  our  practice  by  decking  it  out  in  all  the 
splendour  which  the  specifically  ethical  sentiments 
alone  are  capable  of  supplying.  Could  we  imagine 
the  chronological  order  of  the  evolutionary  process 
reversed  :  if  courage  and  abnegation  had  been  the 
qualities  first  needed,  earliest  developed,  and  there- 
fore most  deeply  rooted  in  the  ancestral  organism  ; 

c 


18  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

while  selfishness,  cowardice,  greediness,  and  lust 
represented  impulses  required  only  at  a  later  stage 
of  physical  and  intellectual  development,  doubtless 
we  should  find  the  '  elevated '  emotions  which  now 
crystallise  round  the  first  set  of  attributes  transferred 
without  alteration  or  amendment  to  the  second  ;  the 
preacher  would  expend  his  eloquence  in  warning  us 
against  excessive  indulgence  in  deeds  of  self- 
immolation,  to  which,  like  the  '  worker '  ant,  we 
should  be  driven  by  inherited  instinct,  and  in  ex- 
horting us  to  the  performance  of  actions  and  the 
cultivation  of  habits  from  which  we  now,  unfortu- 
nately, find  it  only  too  difficult  to  abstain. 

Kant,  as  we  all  know,  compared  the  Moral  Law 
to  the  starry  heavens,  and  found  them  both  sublime. 
It  would,  on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis,  be  more 
appropriate  to  compare  it  to  the  protective  blotches 
on  the  beetle's  back,  and  to  find  them  both  ingenious. 
But  how  on  this  view' is  the  'beauty  of  holiness  '  to 
retain  its  lustre  in  the  minds  of  those  who  know  so 
much  of  its  pedigree  ?  In  despite  of  theories,  man- 
kind— even  instructed  mankind — may,  indeed,  long 
preserve  uninjured  sentiments  which  they  have 
learned  in  their  most  impressionable  years  from 
those  they  love  best ;  but  if,  while  they  are  being 
taught  the  supremacy  of  conscience  and  the  austere 
majesty  of  duty,  they  are  also  to  be  taught  that 
these  sentiments  and  beliefs  are  merely  samples  of 
the  complicated  contrivances,  many  of  them  mean 
and    many  of  them    disgusting,   wrought   into   the 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  19 

physical  or  into  the  social  organism  by  the  shaping 
forces  of  selection  and  elimination,  assuredly  much 
of  the  efficacy  of  these  moral  lessons  will  be  des- 
troyed, and  the  contradiction  between  ethical  senti- 
ment and  naturalistic  theory  will  remain  intrusive 
and  perplexing,  a  constant  stumbling-block  to  those 
who  endeavour  to  combine  in  one  harmonious  creed 
the  bare  explanations  of  Biology  and  the  lofty  claims 
of  Ethics.1 


Unfortunately  for  my  reader,  it  is  not  possible 
wholly  to  omit  from  this  section  some  references  to 
the  questionings  which  cluster  round  the  time-worn 
debate  on  Determinism  and  Free  Will ;  but  my 
remarks  will  be  brief,  and  as  little  tedious  as  may  be. 

I  have  nothing  here  to  do  with  the  truth  or  un- 
truth of  either  of  the   contending  theories.   [It  is 

1  It  may  perhaps  be  thought  that  in  this  section  I  have  too  con- 
fidently assumed  that  morality,  or,  more  strictly,  the  moral  sentiments 
(including  among  these  the  feeling  of  authority  which  attaches  to 
ethical  imperatives),  are  due  to  the  working  of  natural  selection.  I  have 
no  desire  to  dogmatise  on  a  subject  on  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
biologist  and  anthropologist  to  pronounce.  But  it  seems  difficult  to 
believe  that  natural  selection  should  not  have  had  the  most  important 
share  in  producing  and  making  permanent  things  so  obviously  useful. 
If  the  reader  prefers  to  take  the  opposite  view,  and  to  regard  moral 
sentiments  as  '  accidental,'  he  may  do  so,  without  on  that  account 
being  obliged  to  differ  from  my  general  argument.  He  will  then,  of 
course,  class  moral  sentiments  with  the  aesthetic  emotions  dealt  with 
in  the  next  chapter. 

Of  course  I  make  no  attempt  to  trace  the  causes  of  the  variations 
on  which  selective  action  has  worked,  nor  to  distinguish  between  the 
moral  sentiments,  an  inclination  to  or  an  aptitude  for  which  has  been 
bred  into  the  physical  organism  of  man  or  some  races  of  men,  and 
those  which  have  been  wrought  only  into  the  social  organism  of  the 
family,  the  tribe,  or  the  State. 

C2 


20  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

sufficient  to  remind  the  reader  that  on  the  naturalistic 
view,  at  least,  free  will  is  an  absurdity,  and  that 
those  who  hold  that  view  are  bound  to  believe  that 
every  decision  at  which  mankind  have  arrived,  and 
every  consequent  action  which  they  have  performed, 
was  implicitly  determined  by  the  quantity  and  dis- 
tribution of  the  various  forms  of  matter  and  energy 
which  preceded  the  birth  of  the  solar  system.  The 
fact,  no  doubt,  remains x  that  every  individual,  while 
balancing  between  two  courses,  is  under  the  inevit- 
able impression  that  he  is  at  liberty  to  pursue  either, 
and  that  it  depends  upon  'himself  and  himself 
alone,  'himself  as  distinguished  from  his  character, 
his  desires,  his  surroundings,  and  his  antecedents, 
which  of  the  offered  alternatives  he  will  elect  to 
pursue.  )  I  do  not  know  that  any  explanation  has 
been  proposed  of  what,  on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis, 
we  must  regard  as  a  singular  illusion.  I  venture 
with  some  diffidence  to  suggest,  as  a  theory  pro- 
visionally adequate,  perhaps,  for  scientific  purposes, 
that  the  phenomenon  is  due  to  the  same  cause  as  so 
many  other  beneficent  oddities  in  the  organic  world, 
namely,  to  natural  selection.  To  an  animal  with  no 
self-consciousness  a  sense  of  freedom  would  evidently 
be  unnecessary,  if  not,  indeed,  absolutely  unmeaning. 
But  as  soon  as  self-consciousness  is  developed,  as 
soon  as  man  begins  to  reflect,  however  crudely  and 
imperfectly,  upon  himself  and  the  world  in  which  he 

1  At   least,  so   it   seems   to   me.     There   are,    however,   eminent 
psychologists  who  differ. 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  21 

lives,  then  deliberation,  volition,  and  the  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility become  wheels  in  the  ordinary  machinery 
by  which  species-preserving  actions  are  produced  ; 
and  as  these  pyschological  states  would  be  weakened 
or  neutralised  if  they  were  accompanied  by  the  imme- 
diate consciousness  that  they  were  as  rigidly  deter- 
mined by  their  antecedents  as  any  other  effects  by 
any  other  causes,  benevolent  Nature  steps  in,  and  by 
a  process  of  selective  slaughter  makes  the  conscious- 
ness in  such  circumstances  practically  impossible. 
The  spectacle  of  all  mankind  suffering  under  the 
delusion  that  in  their  decision  they  are  free,  when, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  nothing  of  the  kind, 
must  certainly  appear  extremely  ludicrous  to  any 
superior  observer,  were  it  possible  to  conceive,  on 
the  naturalistic  hypothesis,  that  such  observers 
should  exist ;  and  the  comedy  could  not  be  other- 
wise than  greatly  relieved  and  heightened  by  the 
performances  of  the  small  sect  of  philosophers  who, 
knowing  perfectly  as  an  abstract  truth  that  freedom 
is  an  absurdity,  yet  in  moments  of  balance  and 
deliberation  fall  into  the  vulgar  error,  as  if  they  were 
savages  or  idealists. 

The  roots  of  a  superstition  so  ineradicable  must 
lie  deep  in  the  groundwork  of  our  inherited  organism, 
and  must,  if  not  now,  at  least  in  the  first  beginning 
of  self-consciousness,  have  been  essential  to  the 
welfare  of  the  race  which  entertained  it.  Yet  it 
may,  perhaps,  be  thought  that  this  requires  us  to 
attribute  to  the  dawn  of  intelligence  ideas  which  are 


22  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

notoriously  of  late  development ;  and  that  as  the 
primitive  man  knew  nothing  of '  invariable  sequences' 
or  'universal  causation,'  he  could  in  nowise  be  em- 
barrassed in  the  struggle  for  existence  by  recognising 
that  he  and  his  proceedings  were  as  absolutely  deter- 
mined by  their  antecedents  as  sticks  and  stones.  It 
is,  of  course,  true  that  in  any  formal  or  philosophical 
shape  such  ideas  would  be  as  remote  from  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  savage  as  the  differential  calculus. 
But  it  can,  nevertheless,  hardly  be  denied  that,  in 
some  shape  or  other,  there  must  be  implicitly  present 
to  his  consciousness  the  sense  of  freedom,  since  his 
fetichism  largely  consists  in  attributing  to  inanimate 
objects  the  spontaneity  which  he  finds  in  himself; 
and  it  seems  equally  certain  that  the  sense,  I  will 
not  say  of  constraint,  but  of  inevitableness,  would  be 
as  embarrassing  to  a  savage  in  the  act  of  choice  as 
it  would  to  his  more  cultivated  descendant,  and 
would  be  not  less  productive  of  that  moral  im- 
poverishment which,  as  I  proceed  briefly  to  point 
out,  Determinism  is  calculated  to  produce.1 

1  It  seems  to  be  regarded  as  quite  simple  and  natural  that  this 
attribution  of  human  spontaneity  to  inanimate  objects  should  be  the 
first  stage  in  the  interpretation  of  the  external  world,  and  that  it 
should  be  only  after  the  uniformity  of  material  Nature  had  been  con- 
clusively established  by  long  and  laborious  experience  that  the  same 
principles  were  applied  to  the  inner  experience  of  man  himself.  But, 
in  truth,  unless  man  in  the  very  earliest  stages  of  his  development  had 
believed  himself  to  be  free,  precisely  the  opposite  order  of  discovery 
might  have  been  anticipated.  Even  now  our  means  of  external 
investigation  are  so  imperfect  that  it  is  rather  a  stretch  of  lan- 
guage to  say  that  the  theory  of  uniformity  is  in  accordance  with 
experience,  much  less  that  it  is  established  by  it.  On  the  contrary, 
the  more  refined  are  our  experiments,  the  more  elaborate  are  our 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  23 

And  here  I  am  anxious  to  avoid  any  appearance 
of  the  exaggeration  which,  as  I  think,  has  sometimes 
characterised  discussions  upon  this  subject.  I  admit 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  theory  of  determinism 
which  need  modify  the  substance  of  the  moral  law. 
That  which  duty  prescribes,  or  the  '  Practical 
Reason '  recommends,  is  equally  prescribed  and 
recommended  whether  our  actual  decisions  are  or  are 
not  irrevocably  bound  by  a  causal  chain  which  reaches 
back  in  unbroken  retrogression  through  a  limitless 
past.  It  may  also  be  admitted  that  no  argument 
against  good  resolutions  or  virtuous  endeavours  can 
fairly  be  founded  upon  necessitarian  doctrines.  No 
doubt  he  who  makes  either  good  resolutions  or 
virtuous  endeavours  does  so  (on  the  determinist 
theory)  because  he  could   not    do   otherwise ;    but 

precautions,  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  obtain  results  absolutely  identi- 
cal with  each  other,  qualitatively  as  well  as  quantitatively.  So  far, 
therefore,  as  mere  observation  goes,  Nature  seems  to  be  always 
aiming  at  a  uniformity  which  she  never  quite  succeeds  in  attaining  ; 
and  though  it  is  no  doubt  true  that  the  differences  are  due  to  errors 
in  the  observations  and  not  to  errors  in  Nature,  this  manifestly  cannot 
be  proved  by  the  observations  themselves,  but  only  by  a  theory 
established  independently  of  the  observations,  and  by  which  these 
may  be  corrected  and  interpreted.  But  a  man's  own  motives  for 
acting  in  a  particular  way  at  a  particular  time  are  simple  compared 
with  the  complexities  of  the  material  world,  and  to  himself  at  least 
might  be  known  (one  would  suppose)  with  reasonable  certainty. 
Here,  then  (were  it  not  for  the  inveterate  illusion,  old  as  self- 
consciousness  itself,  that  at  the  moment  of  choice  no  uniformity  of 
antecedents  need  insure  a  uniformity  of  consequences)  would  have 
been  the  natural  starting-point  and  suggestion  of  a  theory  of  causation 
which,  as  experience  ripened  and  knowledge  grew,  might  have 
gradually  extended  itself  to  the  universe  at  large.  Man  would,  in 
fact,  have  had  nothing  more  to  do  than  to  apply  to  the  chaotic  com- 
plex of  the  macrocosm  the  principles  of  rigid  and  unchanging  law  by 
which  he  had  discovered  the  microcosm  to  be  governed. 


24  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

none  the  less  may  these  play  an  important  part 
among  the  antecedents  by  which  moral  actions  are 
ultimately  produced.  An  even  stronger  admission 
may,  I  think,  be  properly  made.  There  is  a  fatalistic 
temper  of  mind  found  in  some  of  the  greatest  men 
of  action,  religious  and  irreligious,  in  which  the 
sense  that  all  that  happens  is  fore-ordained  does  in 
no  way  weaken  the  energy  of  volition,  but  only  adds 
a  finer  temper  to  the  courage.  It  nevertheless 
remains  the  fact  that  the  persistent  realisation  of 
the  doctrine  that  voluntary  decisions  are  as  com- 
pletely determined  by  external  and  (if  you  go  far 
enough  back)  by  material  conditions  as  involuntary 
ones,  does  really  conflict  with  the  sense  of  personal 
responsibility,  and  that  with  the  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  is  bound  up  the  moral  will.  Nor 
is  this  all.  It  may  be  a  small  matter  that  deter- 
minism should  render  it  thoroughly  irrational  to  feel 
righteous  indignation  at  the  misconduct  of  other 
people.  It  cannot  be  wholly  without  importance 
that  it  should  render  it  equally  irrational  to  feel 
righteous  indignation  at  our  own.  ( Self-condemna- 
tion, repentance,  remorse,  and  the  whole  train  of 
cognate  emotions,  are  really  so  useful  for  the 
promotion  of  virtue,  that  it  is  a  pity  to  find  them  at 
a  stroke  thus  deprived  of  all  reasonable  foundation, 
and  reduced,  if  they  are  to  survive  at  all,  to  the 
position  of  amiable  but  unintelligent  weaknesses. 
It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  these  emotions,  if  they  are 
to  fall,  will  not  fall  alone.     What   is  to  become  of 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  25 

moral  admiration  ?  /The  virtuous  man  will,  indeed, 
continue  to  deserve  and  to  receive  admiration  of  a 
certain  kind — the  admiration,  namely,  which  we 
justly  accord  to  a  well-made  machine  ;  but  this  is  a 
very  different  sentiment  from  that  at  present  evoked 
by  the  heroic  or  the  saintly  ;  and  it  is,  therefore, 
much  to  be  feared  that,  at  least  in  the  region  of  the 
higher  feelings,  the  world  will  be  no  great  gainer 
by  the  effective  spread  of  sound  naturalistic  doctrine. 
No  doubt  this  conflict  between  a  creed  which 
claims  intellectual  assent  and  emotions  which  have 
their  root  and  justification  in  beliefs  which  are 
deliberately  rejected,  is  greatly  mitigated  by  the 
precious  faculty  which  the  human  race  enjoys  of 
quietly  ignoring  the  logical  consequences  of  its  own 
accepted  theories.  If  the  abstract  reason  by  which 
such  theories  are  contrived  always  ended  in 
producing  a  practice  corresponding  to  them,  natural 
selection  would  long  ago  have  killed  off  all  those 
who  possessed  abstract  reason.  If  a  complete 
accord  between  practice  and  speculation  were 
required  of  us,  philosophers  would  long  ago  have 
been  eliminated.  Nevertheless,  the  persistent  con- 
flict between  that  which  is  thought  to  be  true, 
and  that  which  is  felt  to  be  noble  and  of  good 
report,  not  only  produces  a  sense  of  moral  unrest  in 
the  individual,  but  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  creed  which  leads  to 
such  results  is,  somehow,  unsuited  for  '  such  beings 
as  we  are  in  such  a  world  as  ours.' 


26  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

III 

There  is  thus  an  incongruity  between  the  senti- 
ments subservient  to  morality,  and  the  naturalistic 
account  of  their  origin.  It  remains  to  inquire 
whether  any  better  harmony  prevails  between  the 
demands  of  the  ethical  imagination  and  what 
Naturalism  tells  us  concerning  the  final  goal  oi 
all  human  endeavour. 

This  is  plainly  not  a  question  of  small  or  sub- 
sidiary importance,  though  it  is  one  which  I  shall 
make  no  attempt  to  treat  with  anything  like  com- 
pleteness. Two  only  of  these  ethical  demands  is  il 
necessary,  indeed,  that  I  should  here  refer  to  :  thai 
which  requires  the  ends  prescribed  by  morality  to  be 
consistent ;  and  that  which  requires  them  to  b( 
adequate.  Can  we  say  that  either  one  or  the  othei 
is  of  a  kind  which  the  naturalistic  theory  is  able  t( 
satisfy  ? 

The  first  of  these  questions — that  relating  t( 
consistency — will  no  doubt  be  dealt  with  in  differen 
ways  by  various  schools  of  moralists  ;  but  by  what 
ever  path  they  travel,  all  should  arrive  at  a  negativ< 
conclusion.  Those  who  hold,  as  I  do,  that  '  reason 
able  self-love'  has  a  legitimate  position  amom 
ethical  ends  ;  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  a  virtu 
wholly  incompatible  with  what  is  commonly  calle< 
selfishness  ;  and  that  society  suffers  not  from  havini 
too  much  of  it,  but  from  having  too  little,  wi. 
probably  take  the  view  that,  until  the  world  undei 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  27 

goes  a  very  remarkable  transformation,  a  complete 
harmony  between  'egoism'  and  'altruism,'  between 
the  pursuit  of  the  highest  happiness  for  one's  self 
and  the  highest  happiness  for  other  people,  can 
never  be  provided  by  a  creed  which  refuses  to 
admit  that  the  deeds  done  and  the  character 
formed  in  this  life  can  flow  over  into  another, 
and  there  permit  a  reconciliation  and  an  adjust- 
ment between  the  conflicting  principles  which  are 
not  always  possible  here.  To  those,  again,  who 
hold  (as  I  think,  erroneously),  both  that  the 
'  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number '  is  the 
right  end  of  action,  and  also  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
every  agent  invariably  pursues  his  own,  a  heaven 
and  a  hell,  which  should  make  it  certain  that 
principle  and  interest  were  always  in  agreement, 
would  seem  almost  a  necessity.  Not  otherwise, 
neither  by  education,  public  opinion,  nor  positive 
law,  can  there  be  any  assured  harmony  produced 
between  that  which  man  must  do  by  the  constitution 
of  his  will,  and  that  which  he  ought  to  do  according 
to  the  promptings  of  his  conscience.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  those  moralists 
who  are  of  opinion  that  '  altruistic '  ends  alone  are 
worthy  of  being  described  as  moral,  and  that  man 
is  not  incapable  of  pursuing  them  without  any  self- 
regarding  motives,  require  no  future  life  to  eke  out 
their  practical  system.  But  even  they  would  pro- 
bably not  be  unwilling  to  admit,  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  that  there  is  something  jarring  to  the  moral 


28  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

sense  in  a  comparison  between  the  distribution  of 
happiness  and  the  distribution  of  virtue,  and  that  no 
better  mitigation  of  the  difficulty  has  yet  been 
suggested  than  that  which  is  provided  by  a  system 
of  '  rewards  and  punishments,'  impossible  in  any  uni- 
verse constructed  on  strictly  naturalistic  principles. 

With  this  bare  indication  of  some  of  the  points 
which  naturally  suggest  themselves  in  connection 
with  the  first  question  suggested  above,  I  pass  on  to 
the  more  interesting  problem  raised  by  the  second  : 
that  which  is  concerned  with  the  emotional  adequacy 
of  the  ends  prescribed  by  Naturalistic  Ethics.  And 
in  order  to  consider  this  to  the  best  advantage  I  will 
assume  that  we  are  dealing  with  an  ethical  system 
which  puts  these  ends  at  their  highest ;  which  charges 
them,  as  it  were,  to  the  full  with  all  that,  on  the 
naturalistic  theory,  they  are  capable  of  containing. 
Taking,  then,  as  my  text  no  narrow  or  egoistic 
scheme,  I  will  suppose  that  in  the  perfection 
and  felicity  of  the  sentient  creation  we  may  find 
the  all-inclusive  object  prescribed  by  morality  for 
human  endeavour.  Does  this,  then,  or  does  it  not, 
supply  us  with  all  that  is  needed  to  satisfy  our 
ethical  imagination  ?  Does  it,  or  does  it  not,  pro- 
vide us  with  an  ideal  end,  not  merely  big  enough 
to  exhaust  our  energies,  but  great  enough  to  satisfy 
our  aspirations  ? 

At  first  sight  the  question  may  seem  absurd. 
The  object  is  admittedly  worthy  ;  it  is  admittedly 
beyond  our  reach.     The  unwearied  efforts  of  count- 


NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS  29 

less  generations,  the  slow  accumulation  of  inherited 
experience,  may,  to  those  who  find  themselves  able 
to  read  optimism  into  evolution,  promise  some  faint 
approximation  to  the  millennium  at  some  far  distant 
epoch.  How,  then,  can  we,  whose  own  con- 
tribution to  the  great  result  must  be  at  the  best 
insignificant,  at  the  worst  nothing  or  worse  than 
nothing,  presume  to  think  that  the  prescribed 
object  is  less  than  adequate  to  our  highest  emotional 
requirements  ?  The  reason  is  plain  :  our  ideals  are 
framed,  not  according  to  the  measure  of  our  per- 
formances, but  according  to  the  measure  of  our 
thoughts ;  and  our  thoughts  about  the  world  in 
which  we  live  tend,  under  the  influence  of  increasing 
knowledge,  constantly  to  dwarf  our  estimate  of  the 
importance  of  man,  if  man  be  indeed,  as  Naturalism 
would  have  us  believe,  no  more  than  a  phenomenon 
among  phenomena,  a  natural  object  among  other 
natural  objects. 

For  what  is  man  looked  at  from  this  point  of 
view  ?  Time  was  when  his  tribe  and  its  fortunes 
were  enough  to  exhaust  the  energies  and  to  bound 
the  imagination  of  the  primitive  sage.1  The  gods' 
peculiar  care,  the  central  object  of  an  attendant 
universe,  that  for  which  the  sun  shone  and  the  dew 
fell,  to  which  the  stars  in  their  courses  ministered, 
it  drew  its  origin  in  the  past  from  divine  ancestors, 

1  The  line  of  thought  here  is  identical  with  that  which  I  pursued 
in  an  already  published  essay  on  the  Religion  of  Humanity.  I 
have  not  hesitated  to  borrow  the  phraseology  of  that  essay  wherever 
it  seemed  convenient. 


3o  NATURALISM   AND   ETHICS 

and  might  by  divine  favour  be  destined  to  an  in- 
definite existence  of  success  and  triumph  in  the  future. 
These    ideas    represent    no   early   or   rudimentary 
stage  in  the  human  thought,  yet  have  we  left  them 
far  behind.     The  family^ the  tribe,  the  nation^are 
no  longer  enough  to  absorb  our  interests.     Man — 
past,    present,  and   future— lays  claim   to   our   de- 
votion.    What,  then,  can  we  say  of  him  ?     Man,  so 
far  as  natural  science  by  itself  is  able  to  teach  us,  is 
no  longer  the  final  cause  of  the  universe,  the  Heaven- 
descended  heir  of  all  the  ages.      His  very  existence 
is    an    accident,    his    story    a    brief  and    transitory 
episode   in  the  life  of  one  of   the  meanest  of  the 
planets.     Of  the  combination  of  causes  which  first 
converted  a  dead  organic  compound  into  the  living 
progenitors   of  humanity,    science,    indeed,    as   yet 
knows    nothing.      It    is    enough    that    from    such 
beginnings  famine,   disease,   and  mutual  slaughter 
fit   nurses    of    the   future    lords    of   creation,    have 
gradually  evolved,  after  infinite  travail,  a  race  with 
conscience    enough    to    feel    that    it    is    vile,    and 
intelligence,  enough  to  know  that  it  is  insignificant. 
We  survey  the  past,  and  see  that  its  history  is  of 
blood   and   tears,    of  helpless    blundering,   of  wild 
revolt,  of  stupid  acquiescence,  of  empty  aspirations. 
We  sound  the  future,  and  learn  that  after  a  period, 
long   compared  with    the  individual  life,  but  short 
indeed  compared  with  the  divisions  of  time  open  to 
our  investigation,  the  energies  of  our  system  will 
decay,  the  glory  of  the  sun  will  be  dimmed,  and  the 


NATURALISM   AND    ETHICS  31 

earth,  tideless  and  inert,  will  no  longer  tolerate  the 
race  which  has  for  a  moment  disturbed  its  solitude. 
Man  will  go  down  into  the  pit,  and  all  his  thoughts 
will  perish.  The  uneasy  consciousness,  which  in 
this  obscure  corner  has  for  a  brief  space  broken  the 
contented  silence  of  the  universe,  will  be  at  rest. 
Matter  will  know  itself  no  longer.  '  Imperishable 
monuments '  and  '  immortal  deeds,'  death  itself, 
and  love  stronger  than  death,  will  be  as  though 
they  had  never  been.  Nor  will  anything  that  is 
be  better  or  be  worse  for  all  that  the  labour,  genius^ 
devotion,  and  suffering  of  man  have  striven  through 
countless  generations  to  effect. 

It  is  no  reply  to  say  that  the  substance  of  the 
Moral  Law  need  suffer  no  change  through  any 
modification  of  our  views  of  man's  place  in  the 
universe.  This  may  be  true,  but  it  is  irrelevant. 
We  desire,  and  desire  most  passionately  when  we 
are  most  ourselves,  to  give  our  service  to  that 
which  is  Universal,  and  to  that  which  is  Abiding. 
Of  what  moment  is  it,  then  (from  this  point  of 
view),  to  be  assured  of  the  fixity  of  the, moral  law 
when  it  and  the  sentient  world,  where  alone  it  has 
any  significance,  are  alike  destined  to  vanish  utterly 
away  within  periods  trifling  beside  those  with  which 
the  geologist  and  the  astronomer  lightly  deal  in 
the  course  of  their  habitual  speculations  ?  No 
doubt  to  us  ordinary  men  in  our  ordinary  moments 
considerations  like  these  may  seem  far  off  and  of 
little  meaning.      In  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  every- 


32  NATURALISM  AND  ETHICS 

day  life  death  itself — the  death  of  the  individual — 
seems  shadowy  and  unreal  ;  how  much  more 
shadowy,  how  much  less  real,  that  remoter  but 
not  less  certain  death  which  must  some  day  over- 
take the  race  !  Yet,  after  all,  it  is  in  moments  of 
reflection  that  the  worth  of  creeds  may  best  be 
tested  ;  it  is  through  moments  of  reflection  that 
they  come  into  living  and  effectual  contact  with  our 
active  life.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  a  matter  to  us 
of  small  moment  that,  as  we  learn  to  survey  the 
material  world  with  a  wider  vision,  as  we  more 
clearly  measure  the  true  proportions  which  man  and 
his  performances  bear  to  the  ordered  Whole,  our 
practical  ideal  gets  relatively  dwarfed  and  beggared, 
till  we  may  well  feel  inclined  to  ask  whether  so 
transitory  and  so  unimportant  an  accident  in  the 
general  scheme  of  things  as  the  fortunes  of  the 
human  race  can  any  longer  satisfy  aspirations  and 
emotions  nourished  upon  beliefs  in  the  Everlasting 
and  the  Divine. 


33 


CHAPTER   II 

NATURALISM    AND    ESTHETIC 

I 

In  the  last  chapter  I  considered  the  effects  which 
Naturalism  must  tend  to  produce  upon  the  senti- 
ments associated  with  Morality.  I  now  proceed  to 
consider  the  same  question  in  connection  with  the 
sentiments  known  as  aesthetic  ;  and  as  I  assumed  that 
the  former  class  were,  like  other  evolutionary  utilities, 
in  the  main  produced  by  the  normal  operation  of 
selection,  so  I  now  assume  that  the  latter,  being  (at 
least  in  any  developed  stage)  quite  useless  for  the 
preservation  of  the  individual  or  species,  must  be  re- 
garded, upon  the  naturalistic  hypothesis,  as  mere  by- 
products of  the  great  machinery  by  which  organic 
life  is  varied  and  sustained.  It  will  not,  I  hope,  be 
supposed  that  I  propose  to  offer  this  distinction  as  a 
material  contribution  towards  the  definition  either  of 
ethic  or  of  aesthetic  sentiments.  This  is  a  question 
in  which  I  am  in  no  way  interested  ;  and  I  am 
quite  prepared  to  admit  that  some  emotions  which 
in  ordinary  language  would  be  described  as  'moral,' 
are  useless  enough  to  be  included  in  the  class  of 
natural    accidents ;    and   also    that   this    class    may, 


34  NATURALISM    AND   ESTHETIC 

indeed  does,  include  many  emotions  which  no  one 
following  common  usage  would  characterise  as 
aesthetic.  The  fact  remains,  however,  that  the 
capacity  for  every  form  of  feeling  must  in  the  main 
either  be,  or  not  be,  the  direct  result  of  selection 
and  elimination  ;  and  whereas  in  the  first  section  of 
the  last  chapter  I  considered  the  former  class,  taking 
moral  emotion  as  their  type,  so  now  I  propose  to 
offer  some  observations  on  the  second  class,  taking 
as  their  type  the  emotions  excited  by  the  Beautiful. 
Whatever  value  these  Notes  may  have  will  not 
necessarily  be  affected  by  any  error  that  I  may 
have  made  in  the  apportionment  between  the  twc 
divisions,  and  the  reader  may  make  what  redistri- 
bution he  thinks  fit,  without  thereby  necessarily  in- 
validating the  substance  of  the  conclusions  which  I 
offer  for  his  acceptance. 

I  do  not,  however,  anticipate  that  there  will  be 
any  serious  objection  raised  from  the  scientific  side 
to  the  description  of  developed  aesthetic  emotion  as 
'accidental,'  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  is 
here  employed.  The  obstacle  I  have  to  deal  with 
in  conducting  the  argument  of  this  chapter  is  of  a 
different  kind.  My  object  is  to  indicate  the  con- 
sequences which  flow  from  a  purely  naturalistic  treat- 
ment of  the  theory  of  the  Beautiful ;  and  I  am  at  once 
met  with  the  difficulty  that,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
no  such  treatment  has  ever  been  attempted  on 
a  large  scale,  and  that  the  fragmentary  contributions 
which  have  been  made  to  the  subject  do  not  meel 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  35 

with  general  acceptance  on  the  part  of  scientific 
investigators  themselves.  To  say  that  certain 
capacities  for  highly  complex  feeling  are  not  the 
direct  result  of  natural  selection,  and  were  not 
evolved  to  aid  the  race  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  may  be  a  true,  but  is  a  purely  negative 
account  of  the  matter,  and  gives  but  little  help  in 
dealing  with  the  two  questions  to  which  an  answer 
is  especially  required  :  namely,  What  are  the  causes, 
historical,  psychological,  and  physiological,  which 
enable  us  to  derive  aesthetic  gratification  from 
some  objects,  and  forbid  us  to  derive  it  from  others  ? 
and,  Is  there  any  fixed  and  permanent  element  in 
Beauty,  any  unchanging  reality  which  we  perceive 
in  or  through  beautiful  objects,  and  to  which  normal 
aesthetic  feelings  correspond  ? 

Now,  it  is  clear  that  on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis 
the  second  question  cannot  be  properly  dealt  with 
till  some  sort  of  answer  has  been  given  to  the  first  ; 
and  the  answers  given  to  the  first  seem  so  un- 
satisfactory that  they  can  hardly  be  regarded  as 
even  provisionally  adequate. 

In  order  to  realise  the  difficulties  and,  as  I  think, 
the  shortcomings  of  existing  theories  on  the  subject, 
let  us  take  the  case  of  Music — by  far  the  most  con- 
venient of  the  Fine  Arts  for  our  purpose,  partly 
because,  unlike  Architecture,  it  serves  no  very 
obvious  purpose,1  and   we  are  thus  absolved  from 

1  I  may  be  permitted  to  ignore  Mr.  Spencer's  suggestion  that  the 
function  of  music  is  to  promote  sympathy  by  improving  our  modulation 
in  speech. 

D? 


36  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

giving  any  opinion  on  the  relation  between  beauty 
and  utility ;  partly  because,  unlike  Painting  and 
Poetry,  it  has  no  external  reference,  and  we  are 
thus  absolved  from  giving  any  opinion  on  the  rela- 
tion between  beauty  and  truth.  Of  the  inestimable 
blessings  which  these  peculiarities  carry  with  them, 
anyone  may  judge  who  has  ever  got  bogged  in  the 
barren  controversies  concerning  the  Beautiful  and 
the  Useful,  the  Real  and  the  Ideal,  which  fill  so 
large  a  space  in  certain  classes  of  aesthetic  literature. 
Great  indeed  will  he  feel  the  advantages  to  be  of 
dealing  with  an  Art  whose  most  characteristic 
utterances  have  so  little  directly  to  do  either  with 
utility  or  truth. 

What,  then,  is  the  cause  of  our  delight  in  Music  ? 
It  is  sometimes  hastily  said  to  have  originated  in 
the  ancestors  of  man  through  the  action  of  sexual 
selection.  This  is  of  course  impossible.  Sexual 
selection  can  only  work  on  materials  already  in 
existence.  Like  other  forms  of  selection,  it  can 
improve,  but  it  cannot  create  ;  and  the  capacity  for 
enjoying  music  (or  noise)  on  the  part  of  the  female, 
and  the  capacity  for  making  it  on  the  part  of  the 
male,  must  both  have  existed  in  a  rudimentary  state 
before  matrimonial  preferences  can  have  improved 
either  one  gift  or  the  other.  I  do  not  in  any  case 
quite  understand  how  sexual  selection  is  supposed 
even  to  improve  the  capacity  for  enjoyment.  If  the 
caste  exist,  it  can  no  doubt  develop  the  means 
required  for  its  gratification  ;  but  how  can  it  improve 


NATURALISM   AND   AESTHETIC  37 

the  taste  itself  ?  The  females  of  certain  species  of 
spiders,  I  believe,  like  to  see  good  dancing.  Sexual 
selection,  therefore,  no  doubt  may  gradually  improve 
the  dancing  of  the  male.  The  females  of  many 
animals  are,  it  seems,  fond  of  particular  kinds  of 
noise.  Sexual  selection  may  therefore  gradually 
furnish  the  male  with  the  apparatus  by  which 
appropriate  noises  may  be  produced.  In  both 
cases,  however,  a  pre-existing  taste  is  the  cause  of 
the  variation,  not  the  variation  of  the  taste  ;  nor, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  advanced  arts,  which  do 
not  flourish  at  a  period  when  those  who  successfully 
practise  them  have  any  advantage  in  the  matri- 
monial struggle,  does  taste  appear  to  be  one  of  the 
necessary  qualifications  of  the  successful  artist.  Of 
course,  if  violin-playing  were  an  important  aid  to 
courtship,  sexual  selection  would  tend  to  develop 
that  musical  feeling  and  discrimination,  without 
which  good  violin-playing  is  impossible.  But  a 
grasshopper  requires  no  artistic  sensibility  before 
it  can  successfully  rub  its  wing-cases  together  ;  so 
that  Nature  is  only  concerned  to  provide  the 
anatomical  machinery  by  which  such  rubbing  may 
result  in  a  sibilation  gratifying  to  the  existing 
aesthetic  sensibilities  of  the  female,  but  cannot  in 
any  way  be  concerned  in  developing  the  artistic  side 
of  those  sensibilities  themselves. 

Sexual  selection,  therefore,  however  well  it  may 
be  fitted  to  give  an  explanation  of  a  large  number  of 
animal  noises  and  of  the   growth  of  the  organs  by 


38  NATURALISM   AND   .ESTHETIC 

which  they  are  produced,  throws  but  little  light  on 
the  origin  and  development  of  musical  feeling,  either 
in  animals  or  men.  And  the  other  explanations  I 
have  seen  do  not  seem  to  me  much  better.  Take, 
for  instance,  Mr.  Spencer's  modification  of  Rousseau's 
theory.  According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  strong  emotions 
are  naturally  accompanied  by  muscular  exertion,  and, 
among  other  muscular  exertions,  by  contractions 
and  extensions  of  '  the  muscles  of  the  chest,  abdomen, 
and  vocal  cords.'  The  resultant  noises  recall  by 
association  the  emotions  which  gave  them  birth,  and 
from  this  primordial  coincidence  sprang,  as  we  are 
asked  to  believe,  first  cadenced  speech,  and  then 
music.  Now  I  do  not  desire  to  quarrel  with  the 
'  primordial  coincidence.'  My  point  is,  that  even  if 
it  ever  took  place,  it  affords  no  explanation  of  any 
modern  feeling  for  music.  Grant  that  a  particular 
emotion  produced  a  '  contraction  of  the  abdomen,' 
that  the  '  contraction  of  the  abdomen '  produced  a 
sound  or  series  of  sounds,  and  that,  through  this 
association  with  the  originating  emotion,  the  sound 
ultimately  came  to  have  independent  aesthetic  value, 
how  are  we  advanced  towards  any  explanation  of 
the  fact  that  quite  different  sound-effects  now  please 
us,  and  that  the  nearer  we  get  to  the  original  noises, 
the  more  hideous  they  appear?  How  does  the 
'primordial  coincidence'  account  for  our  ancestors 
liking  the  tom-tom  ?  And  how  does  the  fact  that  our 
ancestors  liked  the  tom-tom  account  for  our  liking 
the  Ninth  Symphony. 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  39 

The  truth  is  that  Mr.  Spencer's  theory,  like  all 
others  which  endeavour  to  trace  back  the  pleasure- 
giving  qualities  of  art  to  some  simple  and  original 
association,  slurs  over  the  real  difficulties  of  the 
problem.  If  it  is  the  primitive  association  which 
produces  the  pleasure-giving  quality,  the  further  this 
is  left  behind  by  the  developing  art,  the  less  plea- 
sure should  be  produced.  Of  course,  if  the  art  is 
continually  fed  from  other  associations  and  different 
experiences,  if  fresh  emotional  elements  are  con- 
stantly added  to  it  capable  of  being  worn  and 
weathered  into  the  fitting  soil  for  an  aesthetic  har- 
vest, in  that  case,  no  doubt,  we  may  suppose  that 
with  each  new  development  its  pleasure-giving 
qualities  may  be  enriched  and  multiplied.  But  then, 
it  is  to  these  new  elements  and  to  these  new  experi- 
ences, not  to  the  '  primordial  coincidence,'  that  we 
should  mainly  look  for  the  causal  explanation  of 
our  aesthetic  feeling.  In  the  case  of  music,  where 
are  these  new  elements  and  experiences  to  be 
found  ?  None  can  tell  us ;  few  theorists  even  try. 
Indeed,  the  procedure  of  those  who  account  for 
music  by  searching  for  the  primitive  association 
which  first  in  the  history  of  man  or  of  his  ancestors 
conferred  aesthetic  value  upon  noise,  is  as  if  one 
should  explain  the  Amazon  in  its  flood  by  point- 
ing to  the  rivulet  in  the  far  Andes  which,  as  the 
tributary  most  distant  from  its  mouth,  has  the  honour 
of  being  called  its  source.  This  may  be  allowed  to 
stand  as  a  geographical  description,  but  it  is  very 


4o  NATURALISM  AND  ESTHETIC 

inadequate  as  a  physical  explanation.  Dry  up  the 
rivulet,  and  the  huge  river  would  still  flow  on, 
without  abatement  or  diminution.  Only  its  titular 
origin  has  been  touched  ;  and  if  we  would  know  the 
Amazon  in  its  beginnings,  and  trace  back  the  history 
of  the  vast  result  through  all  the  complex  ramifica- 
tions of  its  contributory  causes,  each  great  confluent 
must  be  explored,  each  of  the  countless  streams 
enumerated  whose  gathered  waters  sweep  into  the 
sea  four  thousand  miles  across  the  plain. 

The  imperfection  of  this  mode  of  procedure  will 
become  clear  if  we  compare  it  with  that  adopted 
by  the  same  school  of  theorists  when  they  endeavour 
to  explain  the  beauty  of  landscape.  I  do  not  mean 
to  express  any  assent  to  their  account  of  the  causes 
of  our  feelings  for  scenery ;  on  the  contrary,  these 
accounts  seem  to  me  untenable.  But  though  unten- 
able, they  are  not  on  the  face  of  them  inadequate. 
Natural  objects — the  sky  and  hills,  woods  and  waters 
— are  spread  out  before  us  as  they  were  spread  out 
before  our  remotest  ancestors,  and  there  is  no  ob- 
vious absurdity  (if  the  hereditary  transmission  of 
acquired  qualities  be  granted)  in  conceiving  them, 
through  the  secular  experience  of  mankind,  to  be- 
come charged  with  associations  which  reappear  for 
us  in  the  vague  and  massive  form  of  aesthetic  plea- 
sure. But  according  to  all  association  theories  of 
music,  that  which  is  charged  with  the  raw  material  of 
aesthetic  pleasure  is  not  the  music  we  wish  to  have 
explained,  but  some  primeval  howl,  or  at  best  the 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  41 

unmusical  variations  of  ordinary  speech,  and  no 
solution  whatever  is  offered  of  the  paradox  that  the 
sounds  which  give  musical  delight  have  no  associa- 
tions, and  that  the  sounds  which  had  associations 
give  no  musical  delight. 

It  is,  perhaps,  partly  in  consequence  of  these  or 
analogous  difficulties,  but  mainly  in  consequence  of 
his  views  on  heredity,  which  preclude  him  from 
accepting  any  theory  which  involves  the  transmis- 
sion of  acquired  qualities,  that  Weismann  gives  an 
account  of  the  musical  sense  which  is  practically 
equivalent  to  the  denial  that  any  explanation  of  the 
pleasure  we  derive  from  music  is  possible  at  all. 
For  him,  the  faculties  which  enable  us  to  appreciate 
and  enjoy  music  were  evolved  for  entirely  differ- 
ent purposes,  and  it  is  a  mere  accident  that,  when 
they  come  into  relation  with  certain  combinations  of 
sound,  we  obtain  through  their  means  aesthetic 
gratification.  Mankind,  no  doubt,  are  continually 
inventing  new  musical  devices,  as  they  are  con- 
tinually inventing  new  dishes.  But  as  the  second 
process  implies  an  advance  in  the  art  of  cookery, 
but  no  transmitted  modification  in  the  human  palate, 
so  the  former  implies  musical  progress,  but  no 
change  in  the  innate  capacities  of  successive  genera- 
tions of  listeners.1 

1  I  have  made  no  allusion  to  Helmholtz's  classic  investigations,  for 
these  deal  chiefly  with  the  physical  character  of  the  sounds,  or  com- 
binations of  sound,  which  give  us  pleasure,  but  do  not  pretend  fully  to 
answer  the  question  why  they  give  pleasure. 


42  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 


This  is,  perhaps,  a  sufficiently  striking  example 
of  the  unsatisfactory  condition  of  scientific  aesthetics, 
and  may  serve  to  show  how  difficult  it  is  to  find  in 
the  opinions  of  different  authorities  a  common  body 
of  doctrine  on  which  to  rest  the  argument  of  this 
chapter.  I  should  imagine,  however,  both  from 
the  speculations  to  which  I  have  just  briefly  ad- 
verted, and  from  any  others  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted, that  no  person  who  is  at  all  in  sympathy 
with  the  naturalistic  view  of  things  would  maintain 
that  there  anywhere  exists  an  intrinsic  and  essential 
quality  of  beauty,  independent  of  the  feelings  and 
the  taste  of  the  observer.  The  very  nature,  indeed, 
of  the  senses  principally  engaged  indicates  that  on 
the  naturalistic  hypothesis  they  cannot,  in  most  cases, 
refer  to  any  external  and  permanent  object  of  beauty. 
For  Naturalism  (as  commonly  held)  is  deeply  com- 
mitted to  the  distinction  between  the  primary  and 
the  secondary  qualities  of  matter  ;  the  former  (exten- 
sion, solidity,  and  so  forth)  being  supposed  to  exist  as 
they  are  perceived,  while  the  latter  (such  as  sound  and 
colour)  are  due  to  the  action  of  the  primary  qualities 
upon  the  sentient  organism,  and  apart  from  the  sen- 
tient organism  have  no  independent  being.  Every 
scene  in  Nature,  therefore,  and  every  work  of  art, 
whose  beauty  consists  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
either  presentatively  or  representatively,  in  colour  or 
in  sound,  has,  and  can  have,  no  more  permanent  exist- 


NATURALISM   AND   AESTHETIC  43 

ence  than  is  possessed  by  that  relation  between  the 
senses  and  our  material  environment  which  gave  them 
birth,  and  in  the  absence  of  which  they  perish.  If 
we  could  perceive  the  succession  of  events  which 
constitute  a  sunset  exactly  as  they  occur,  as  they 
are  (physically,  not  metaphysically  speaking)  in 
themselves,  they  would,  so  far  as  we  can  guess,  have 
no  aesthetic  merit,  or  even  meaning.  If  we  could 
perform  the  same  operation  on  a  symphony,  it 
would  end  in  a  like  result.  The  first  would  be  no 
more  than  a  special  agitation  of  the  ether ;  the 
second  would  be  no  more  than  a  special  agitation 
of  the  air.  However  much  they  might  excite  the 
curiosity  of  the  physicist  or  the  mathematician,  for 
the  artist  they  could  no  longer  possess  either  interest 
or  significance. 

It  might,  however,  be  said  that  the  Beautiful, 
although  it  cannot  be  called  permanent  as  compared 
with  the  general  framework  of  the  external  world,  is, 
nevertheless,  sufficiently  permanent  for  all  human 
purposes,  inasmuch  as  it  depends  upon  fixed  rela- 
tions between  our  senses  and  their  material  sur- 
roundings. Without  at  present  stopping  to  dispute 
this,  let  us  consider  whether  we  have  any  right  to 
suppose  that  even  this  degree  of  '  objectivity '  can 
be  claimed  for  the  quality  of  beauty.  In  order  to 
settle  the  question  we  can,  on  the  naturalistic 
hypothesis,  appeal,  it  would  seem,  to  only  one 
authority,  namely,  the  experience  of  mankind. 
Does  this,  then,  provide  us  with  any  evidence  that 


44  NATURALISM   AND   AESTHETIC 

beauty  is  more  than  the  name  for  a  miscellaneous 
flux  of  endlessly  varying  causes,  possessing  no 
property  in  common,  except  that  at  some  place,  at 
some  time,  and  in  some  person,  they  have  shown 
themselves  able  to  evoke  the  kind  of  feeling  which 
we  choose  to  describe  as  aesthetic  ? 

Put  thus  there  seems  room  for  but  one  answer. 
The  variations  of  opinion  on  the  subject  of  beauty 
are  notorious.  Discordant  pronouncements  are 
made  by  different  races,  different  ages,  different 
individuals,  the  same  individual  at  different  times. 
Nor  does  it  seem  possible  to  devise  any  scheme  by 
which  an  authoritative  verdict  can  be  extracted  from 
this  chaos  of  contradiction.  An  appeal,  indeed,  is 
sometimes  made  from  the  opinion  of  the  vulgar  to 
the  decision  of  persons  of  '  trained  sensibility  ' ;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  through 
the  action  of  those  who  profess  to  belong  to  this 
class,  an  orthodox  tradition  has  grown  up  which 
may  seem  at  first  sight  almost  to  provide  some  faint 
approximation  to  the  '  objective  '  standard  of  which 
we  are  in  search.  Yet  it  will  be  evident  on 
consideration  that  it  is  not  simply  on  their  '  trained 
sensibility'  that  experts  rely  in  forming  their 
opinion.  The  ordinary  critical  estimate  of  a  work 
of  art  is  the  result  of  a  highly  complicated  set  of 
antecedents,  and  by  no  means  consists  in  a  simple 
and  naked  valuation  of  the  'aesthetic  thrill'  which 
the  aforesaid  work  produces  in  the  critic,  now  and 
here.     If  it  were  so,  clearly  it  could  not  be  of  any 


NATURALISM  AND   ESTHETIC  45 

importance  to  the  art  critic  when  and  by  whom  any 
particular  work  of  art  was  produced.  Problems  of 
age  and  questions  of  authorship  would  be  left 
entirely  to  the  historian,  and  the  student  of  the 
beautiful  would,  as  such,  ask  himself  no  question 
but  this  :  How  and  why  are  my  aesthetic  sensibilities 
affected  by  this  statue,  poem,  picture,  as  it  is  in 
itself?  or  (to  put  the  same  thing  in  a  form  less  open 
to  metaphysical  disputation),  What  would  my  feelings 
towards  it  be  if  I  were  totally  ignorant  of  its  date, 
its  author,  and  the  circumstances  of  its  production  ? 

As  we  all  know,  these  are  considerations  never 
in  practice  ignored  by  the  critic.  He  is  pre- 
occupied, and  rightly  preoccupied,  by  a  multitude 
of  questions  beyond  the  mere  valuation  of  the  out- 
standing amount  of  aesthetic  enjoyment  which,  in 
the  year  1892,  any  artistic  or  literary  work,  taken 
simpliciter,  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  capable  of  pro- 
ducing. He  is  much  concerned  with  its  technical 
peculiarities.  He  is  anxious  to  do  justice  to  its 
author,  to  assign  him  his  true  rank  among  the 
productive  geniuses  of  his  age  and  country,  to 
make  due  allowance  for  his  '  environment,'  for  the 
traditions  in  which  he  was  nurtured,  for  the  causes 
which  make  his  creative  genius  embody  itself  in  one 
form  rather  than  in  another.  Never  for  one  instant 
does  the  critic  forget,  or  allow  his  reader  to  forget, 
that  the  real  magnitude  of  the  foreshortened  object 
under  observation  must  be  estimated  by  the  rules  of 
historical   perspective.       Never   does     he    omit,    in 


46  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

dealing  with  the  artistic  legacies  of  bygone  times, 
to  take  account  of  any  long-accepted  opinion  which 
may  exist  concerning  them.  He  endeavours  to 
make  himself  the  exponent  of  the  'correct  view.'  His 
judgment  is,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  but  not, 
I  think,  wrongly,  a  sort  of  compromise  between  that 
which  he  would  form  if  he  drew  solely  from  his  own 
inner  experience,  and  that  which  has  been  formed 
for  him  by  the  accumulated  wisdom  of  his  prede- 
cessors on  the  bench.  He  expounds  case-made  law. 
He  is  partly  the  creature  and  partly  the  creator  of  a 
critical  tradition  ;  and  we  can  easily  conjecture  how 
devious  his  course  would  be,  were  his  orbit  not 
largely  controlled  by  the  attraction  of  received  views, 
if  we  watch  the  disastrous  fate  which  so  often 
overtakes  him  when  he  pronounces  judgment  on  new 
woVks,  or  on  works  of  which  there  is  no  estimate 
embodied  in  any  literary  creed  which  he  thinks  it 
necessary  to  respect.  Voltaire's  opinion  of  Shake- 
speare does  not  make  one  think  less  of  Voltaire,  but  it 
throws  an  interesting  light  on  the  genesis  of  average 
critical  decisions  and  the  normal  growth  of  taste. 

From  these  considerations,  which  might  easily 
be  supplemented,  it  seems  plain  that  the  opinions  of 
critical  experts  represent,  not  an  objective  standard, 
if  such  a  thing  there  be,  but  an  historical  com- 
promise. The  agreement  among  them,  so  far  as 
such  a  thing  is  to  be  found,  is  not  due  solely  to  the 
fact  that  with  their  own  eyes  they  all  see  the  same 
things,  and  therefore  say  the  same  things  ;  it  is  not 


NATURALISM   AND    ESTHETIC  47 

wholly  the  result  of  a  common  experience :  it  arises  in 
no  small  measure  from  their  sympathetic  endeavours 
to  see  as  others  have  seen,  to  feel  as  others  have  felt, 
to  judge  as  others  have  judged.  This  may  be,  and  I 
suppose  is,  the  fairest  way  of  comparing  the  merits 
of  deceased  artists.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it  makes 
it  impossible  for  us  to  attach  much  weight  to  the 
assumed  consensus  of  the  ages,  or  to  suppose  that 
this,  so  far  as  it  exists,  implies  the  reality  of  a 
standard  independent  of  the  varying  whims  and 
fancies  of  individual  critics.  In  truth,  however,  the 
consensus  of  the  ages,  even  about  the  greatest 
works  of  creative  genius,  is  not  only  in  part  due  to 
the  process  of  critical  manufacture  indicated  above, 
but  its  whole  scope  and  magnitude  is  absurdly 
exaggerated  in  the  phrases  which  pass  current  on 
the  subject.  This  is  not  a  question,  be  it  observed, 
of  aesthetic  right  and  wrong,  of  good  taste  or  bad 
taste  ;  it  is  a  question  of  statistics.  We  are  not  here 
concerned  with  what  the  mass  of  mankind,  even  of 
educated  mankind,  ought  to  feel,  but  with  what  as 
a  matter  of  fact  they  do  feel,  about  the  works  of 
literature  and  art  which  they  have  inherited  from 
the  past.  And  I  believe  that  every  impartial  ob- 
server will  admit  that,  of  the  aesthetic  emotion 
actually  experienced  by  any  generation,  the  merest 
fraction  is  due  to  the  '  immortal '  productions  of  the 
generations  which  have  long  preceded  it.  Their 
immortality  is  largely  an  immortality  of  libraries 
and  museums  ;  they  supply  material  to  critics  and 


48  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

historians,  rather  than  enjoyment  to  mankind  ;  and 
if  it  were  to  be  maintained  that  one  music-hall  song 
gives  more  aesthetic  pleasure  in  a  night  than  the 
most  exquisite  compositions  of  Palestrina  in  a 
decade,  I  know  not  how  the  proposition  could  be 
refuted. 

The  ancient  Norsemen  supposed  that  besides 
the  soul  of  the  dead,  which  went  to  the  region  of 
departed  spirits,  there  survived  a  ghost,  haunting, 
though  not  for  ever,  the  scenes  of  his  earthly- 
labours.  At  first  vivid  and  almost  lifelike,  it  slowly 
waned  and  faded,  until  at  length  it  vanished, 
leaving  behind  it  no  trace  or  memory  of  its  spectral 
presence  amidst  the  throng  of  living  men.  So, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  the  immortality  we  glibly  pre- 
dicate of  departed  artists.  If  they  survive  at  all, 
it  is  but  a  shadowy  life  they  live,  moving  on 
through  the  gradations  of  slow  decay  to  distant  but 
inevitable  death.  They  can  no  longer,  as  hereto- 
fore, speak  directly  to  the  hearts  of  their  fellow-men, 
evoking  their  tears  or  laughter,  and  all  the  pleasures, 
be  they  sad  or  merry,  of  which  imagination  holds 
the  secret.  Driven  from  the  market-place,  they 
become  first  the  companions  of  the  student,  then  the 
victims  of  the  specialist.  He  who  would  still  hold 
familiar  intercourse  with  them  must  train  himself  to 
penetrate  the  veil  which,  in  ever-thickening  folds, 
conceals  them  from  the  ordinary  gaze ;  he  must 
catch  the  tone  of  a  vanished  society,  he  must  move 
in  a  circle  of  alien  associations,  he  must  think  in  a 


NATURALISM   AND   ^ESTHETIC  49 

language  not  his  own.  Need  we,  then,  wonder  that 
under  such  conditions  the  outfit  of  a  critic  is  as 
much  intellectual  as  emotional,  or  that  if  from  off 
the  complex  sentiments  with  which  they  regard  the 
•  immortal  legacies  of  the  past '  we  strip  all  that  is 
due  to  interests  connected  with  history,  with  bio- 
graphy, with  critical  analysis,  with  scholarship,  and 
with  technique,  but  a  small  modicum  will,  as  a  rule, 
remain  which  can  with  justice  be  attributed  to  pure 
aesthetic  sensibility. 

in 

I  have,  however,  no  intention  of  implying  by  the 
preceding  observations  that  the  aesthetic  feelings  of 
'  the  vulgar '  are  less  sophisticated  than  those  of  the 
learned.  A  very  cursory  examination  of  '  public 
taste '  and  its  revolutions  may  suffice  to  convince 
anyone  of  the  contrary.  And,  in  the  first  place,  let 
us  ask  why  every  '  public '  has  a  taste  ?  And  why, 
at  least  in  Western  communities,  that  taste  is  so  apt 
to  alter  ?  Why,  in  other  words,  do  communities  or 
sections  of  communities  so  often  feel  the  same 
thing  at  the  same  time,  and  so  often  feel  different 
things  at  different  times  ?  Why  is  there  so  much 
uniformity,  and  why  is  there  so  much  change  ? 

These  questions  are  of  great  interest,  although 
they  have  not,  perhaps,  met  with  all  the  attention 
they  deserve.  In  these  Notes  it  would  not  be 
fitting  to  attempt  to  deal  with  them  at  length, 
and  I  shall  only  offer  observations  on   two    points 


50  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

which  seem  relevant  to  the  design  of  the  present 
chapter. 

The  question  of  Uniformity  is  best  approached  at 
the  humbler  end  of  the  aesthetic  scale,  in  connection, 
not  with  art  in  its  narrower  and  loftier  sense,  but 
with  dress.  Everybody  is  acquainted,  either  by 
observation  or  by  personal  experience,  with  the 
coercive  force  of  fashion  ;  but  not  everybody  is 
aware  what  an  instructive  and  interesting  pheno- 
menon it  presents.  Consider  the  case  of  bonnets. 
During  the  same  season  all  persons  belonging,  or 
aspiring  to  belong,  to  the  same  '  public,'  if  they  wear 
bonnets  at  all,  wear  bonnets  modelled  on  the  same 
type.  Why  do  they  do  this  ?  If  we  were  asking  a 
similar  question,  not  about  bonnets,  but  about  steam- 
engines,  the  answer  would  be  plain.  People  tend 
at  the  same  date  to  use  the  same  kind  of  engine  for 
the  same  kind  of  purpose  because  it  is  the  best 
available.  They  change  their  practice  when  a  better 
one  is  invented.  But  as  so  used  the  words  '  better ' 
and  '  best '  have  no  application  to  modern  dress. 
Neither  efficiency  nor  economy,  it  will  at  once  be 
admitted,  supplies  the  grounds  of  choice  or  the 
motives  for  variation. 

If,  again,  we  were  asking  the  question  about  some 
great  phase  of  art,  we  should  probably  be  told  that 
the  general  acceptance  of  it  by  a  whole  generation 
was  due  to  some  important  combination  of  historic 
causes,  acting  alike  on  artist  and  on  public.  Such 
causes  no  doubt  exist  and  have  existed  ;  but  the  case 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  51 

of  fashion  proves  that  uniformity  is  not  produced 
by  them  alone,  since  it  will  hardly  be  pretended  that 
there  is  any  widely  diffused  cause  in  the  social 
environment,  except  the  coercive  operation  of 
fashion  itself,  which  should  make  the  bonnets  which 
were  thought  becoming  in  1881  unbecoming  in  the 
year  1892. 

Again,  we  might  be  told  that  art  contains  essen- 
tial principles  of  self-development,  which  require  one 
productive  phase  to  succeed  another  by  a  kind  of 
inner  necessity,  and  determine  not  merely  that  there 
shall  be  variation,  but  what  that  variation  shall  be. 
This  also  may  be,  and  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  true. 
But  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  we  can  explain 
the  fashions  which  prevail  in  any  year  by  assuming, 
not  merely  that  the  fashions  of  the  previous  years 
were  foredoomed  to  change,  but  also  that,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  only  one  change  was  possible,  that, 
namely,  which  actually  took  place.  Such  a  doctrine 
would  be  equivalent  to  saying  that  if  all  the  bonnet- 
wearers  were  for  a  space  deprived  of  any  knowledge 
of  each  other's  proceedings  (all  other  things  re- 
maining the  same),  they  would,  on  the  resumption 
of  their  ordinary  intercourse,  find  that  they  had  all 
inclined  towards  much  the  same  modification  of  the 
type  of  bonnet  prevalent  before  their  separation — a 
conclusion  which  seems  to  me,  I  confess,  to  be 
somewhat  improbable. 

It  may  perhaps  be  hazarded,  as  a  further  expla- 
nation, that  this  uniformity  of  practice  is  indeed  a  fact, 


52  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

and  is  really  produced  by  a  complex  group  of  causes 
which  we  denominate  'fashion,'  but  that  it  is  a 
uniformity  of  practice  alone,  not  of  taste  or  feeling, 
and  has  no  real  relation  to  any  aesthetic  problem 
whatever.  This  is  a  question  the  answer  to  which 
can  be  supplied,  I  apprehend,  by  observation  alone ; 
and  the  answer  which  observation  enables  us  to  give 
seems  to  me  quite  unambiguous.  If,  as  is  possible, 
my  readers  have  but  small  experience  in  such 
matters  themselves,  let  them  examine  the  experi- 
ences of  their  acquaintance.  They  will  find,  if  I 
mistake  not,  that  by  whatever  means  conformity  to 
a  particular  pattern  may  have  been  brought  about, 
those  who  conform  are  not,  as  a  rule,  conscious  of 
coercion  by  an  external  and  arbitrary  authority. 
They  do  not  act  under  penalty  ;  they  yield  no  un- 
willing obedience.  On  the  contrary,  their  admiration 
for  a  '  well-dressed  person,'  quel  well-dressed,  is  at 
least  as  genuine  an  aesthetic  approval  as  any  they 
are  in  the  habit  of  expressing  for  other  forms  of 
beauty  ;  just  as  their  objection  to  an  outworn  fashion 
is  based  on  a  perfectly  genuine  aesthetic  dislike. 
They  are  repelled  by  the  unaccustomed  sight,  as  a 
reader  of  discrimination  is  repelled  by  turgidity  or 
false  pathos.  1 1  appears  to  them  ugly,  even  grotesque, 
and  they  turn  from  it  with  an  aversion  as  disinterested, 
as  unperturbed  by  personal  or  '  society '  considera- 
tions, as  if  they  were  critics  contemplating  the  produc- 
tion of  some  pretender  in  the  region  of  Great  Art. 
In  truth  this  tendency  in  matters  aesthetic  is  only 


NATURALISM   AND   ^ESTHETIC  53 

a  particular  case  of  a  general  tendency  to  agreement 
which  plays  an  even  more  important  part  in  other 
departments  of  human  activity.  Its  operation,  bene- 
ficent doubtless  on  the  whole,  may  be  traced  through 
all  social  and  political  life.  We  owe  to  it  in  part 
that  deep-lying  likeness  in  tastes,  in  opinions,  and  in 
habits,  without  which  cohesion  among  the  individual 
units  of  a  community  would  be  impossible,  and 
which  constitutes  the  unmoved  platform  on  which 
we  fight  out  our  political  battles.  It  is  no  contemp- 
tible factor  among  the  forces  by  which  nations  are 
created  and  reliq-ions  disseminated  and  maintained. 
It  is  the  very  breath  of  life  to  sects  and  coteries. 
Sometimes,  no  doubt,  its  results  are  ludicrous. 
Sometimes  they  are  unfortunate.  Sometimes  merely 
insignificant.  Under  which  of  these  heads  we  should 
class  our  ever-changing  uniformity  in  dress  I  will 
not  take  upon  me  to  determine.  It  is  sufficient  for 
my  present  purpose  to  point  out  that  the  aesthetic 
likings  which  fashion  originates,  however  trivial,  are 
perfectly  genuine  ;  and  that  to  an  origin  similar  in 
kind,  however  different  in  dignity  and  permanence, 
should  be  traced  much  of  the  characteristic  quality 
which  gives  its  special  flavour  to  the  higher  artistic 
sentiments  of  each  successive  generation. 

IV 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  this  'tendency  to  agree- 
ment,'1 this  principle  of  drill,  cannot  itself  determine 

1  Of  course  the  '  tendency  to  agreement '  is  not  presented  to  the 


54  NATURALISM   AND   ^ESTHETIC 

the  objects  in  respect  of  which  the  agreement  is  to 
take  place.  It  can  do  much  to  make  every  member 
of  a  particular  '  public '  like  the  same  bonnet,  or  the 
same  epic,  at  the  same  time  ;  but  it  cannot  deter- 
mine what  that  bonnet  or  that  epic  is  to  be.  A 
fashion,  as  the  phrase  goes,  has  to  be  '  set,'  and  the 
persons  who  set  it  manifestly  do  not  followr  it.  What, 
then,  do  they  follow  ?  We  note  the  influences  that 
move  the  flock.     What  moves  the  bell-wether  ? 

Here  again  much  might  conveniently  be  learnt 
from  an  examination  of  fashion  and  its  changes,  for 
these  provide  us  with  a  field  of  research  where  we 
are  disturbed  by  no  preconceived  theories  or  incon- 
venient admirations,  and  where  we  may  dissect  our 
subject  with  the  cold  impartiality  which  befits 
scientific  investigation.  The  reader,  however,  may 
think  that  enough  has  been  done  already  by  this 
method ;  and  I  shall  accordingly  pursue  a  more 
general  treatment  of  the  subject,  premising  that  in 
the  brief  observations  which  follow  no  complete 
analysis  of  the  complexity  of  concrete  Nature  is 
attempted,  or  is,  indeed,  necessary  for  my  purpose. 

it  will  be  convenient,  in  the  first  place,  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  mode  in  which  the  public  who 
enjoy,  and  the  artists  who  produce,  respectively 
promote  aesthetic  change.     That  the  public  are  often 

reader  as  a  simple,  undecomposable  social  force.  It  is,  doubtless, 
highly  complex,  one  of  its  most  important  elements  being,  I  suppose, 
the  instinct  of  uncritical  imitation,  which  is  the  very  basis  of  all  effec- 
tive education.  The  line  of  thought  hinted  at  in  this  paragraph  is 
pursued  much  further  in  the  Third  Part  of  this  Essay 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 


55 


weary  and  expectant — weary  of  what  is  provided  for 
them,  and  expectant  of  some  good  thing  to  come — 
will  hardly  be  denied.  Yet  I  do  not  think  they  can 
be  usually  credited  with  the  conscious  demand  for  a 
fresh  artistic  development.  For  though  they  often 
want  some  new  thing,  they  do  not  often  want  a 
new  kind  of  thing  ;  and  accordingly  it  commonly, 
though  not  invariably,  happens  that,  when  the 
new  thing  appears,  it  is  welcomed  at  first  by  the 
few,  and  only  gradually—  by  the  force  of  fashion 
and  otherwise — conquers  the  genuine  admiration  of 
the  many. 

The  artist,  on  the  other  hand,  is  moved  in  no 
small  measure  by  a  desire  that  his  work  should  be 
his  own,  no  pale  reflection  of  another's  methods, 
but  an  expression  of  himself  in  his  own  language. 
He  will  vary  for  the  better  if  he  can,  yet,  rather  than 
be  conscious  of  repetition,  he  will  vary  for  the  worse  ; 
for  vary  he  must,  either  in  substance  or  in  form, 
unless  he  is  to  be  in  his  own  eyes,  not  a  creator,  but 
an  imitator  ;  not  an  artist,  but  a  copyist.1 

It  will  be  observed  that  I  am  not  obliged  to 
draw  the  dividing-line  between  originality  and 
plagiarism  ;  to  distinguish  between  the  man  who  is 
one  of  a  school,  and  the  man  who  has  done  no  more 
than  merely  catch  the  trick  of  a  master.  It  is 
enough  that  the  artist  himself  draws  the  distinction, 

1  No  doubt  it  is  an  echo  of  this  feeling  that  makes  purchasers 
commonly  prefer  a  bad  original  to  the  best  copy  of  the  best  original — 
a  preference  which  in  argument  it  would  be  exceedingly  difficult  to 
justify. 


56  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

and  will  never  consciously  allow  himself  to  sink  from 
the  first  category  into  the  second. 

We  have  here,  then,  a  general  cause  of  change, 
but  not  a  cause  of  change  in  any  particular  direction, 
or  of  any  particular  amount.  These  I  believe  to  be 
determined  in  part  by  the  relation  between  the 
artists  and  the  public  for  whom  they  produce,  and  in 
part  by  the  condition  of  the  art  itself  at  the  time  the 
change  occurs.  As  regards  the  first,  it  is  commonly 
said  that  the  artist  is  the  creation  of  his  age,  and  the 
discovery  of  this  fact  is  sometimes  thought  to  be  a 
momentous  contribution  made  by  science  to  the 
theory  of  aesthetic  evolution.  The  statement,  how- 
ever, is  unfortunately  worded.  The  action  of  the 
age  is,  no  doubt,  important,  but  it  would  be  more 
accurate,  I  imagine,  to  describe  it  as  destructive 
than  as  creative ;  it  does  not  so  much  produce  as 
select.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  influence  of 
'  the  environment '  in  moulding,  developing,  and 
stimulating  genius  within  the  limits  of  its  original 
capacity  is  very  great,  and  may  seem,  especially  in 
the  humbler  walks  of  artistic  production,  to  be  all- 
powerful.  But  innate  and  original  genius  is  not  the 
creation  of  any  age.  It  is  a  biological  accident,  the 
incalculable  product  of  two  sets  of  ancestral  ten- 
dencies ;  and  what  the  age  does  to  these  biological 
accidents  is  not  to  create  them,  but  to  choose  from 
them,  to  encourage  those  which  are  in  harmony  with 
its  spirit,  to  crush  out  and  to  sterilise  the  rest.  Its 
action  is  analogous  to  that  which  a  plot  of  ground 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  57 

exercises  on  the  seeds  which  fall  upon  it.  Some 
thrive,  some  languish,  some  die  ;  and  the  resulting 
vegetation  is  sharply  characterised,  not  because  few 
kinds  of  seed  have  there  sown  themselves,  but 
because  few  kinds  have  been  allowed  to  grow  up. 
Without  pushing  the  parallel  too  far,  it  may  yet 
serve  to  illustrate  the  truth  that,  as  a  stained  window 
derives  its  character  and  significance  from  the 
absorption  of  a  large  portion  of  the  rays  which 
endeavour  to  pass  through  it,  so  an  age  is  what  it  is, 
not  only  by  reason  of  what  it  fosters,  but  as  much, 
perhaps,  by  reason  of  what  it  destroys.  We  may  con- 
ceive, then,  that  from  the  total  but  wholly  unknown 
number  of  men  of  productive  capacity  born  in  any 
generation,  those  whose  gifts  are  in  harmony  with  the 
tastes  of  their  contemporaries  will  produce  their  best ; 
those  whose  gifts  are  wholly  out  of  harmony  will  be 
extinguished,  or,  which  is  very  nearly  the  same  thing, 
will  produce  only  for  the  benefit  of  the  critics  in  suc- 
ceeding generations ;  while  those  who  occupy  an  in- 
termediate position  will,  indeed,  produce,  but  their 
powers  will,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  be  warped 
and  thwarted,  and  their  creations  fall  short  of  what, 
under  happier  circumstances,  they  might  have  been 
able  to  achieve. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  tendency  to  change 
arising  out  of  the  artist's  insistence  on  originality, 
and  a  limitation  on  change  imposed  by  the 
character  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives.  The  kind 
of  change  will  be  largely  determined  by  the  con- 

I  UNIVERSITY  J 


58  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

dition  of  the  art  which  he  is  practising.  If  it  be  in 
an  early  phase,  full  as  yet  of  undeveloped  possi- 
bilities, then  in  all  probability  he  will  content  him- 
self with  improving  on  his  predecessors,  without 
widely  deviating  from  the  lines  they  have  laid 
down.  For  this  is  the  direction  of  least  resistance  : 
here  is  no  public  taste  to  be  formed,  here  are  no 
great  experiments  to  be  tried,  here  the  pioneer's 
rough  work  of  discovery  has  already  been  accom- 
plished. But  if  this  particular  fashion  of  art  has 
culminated,  and  be  in  its  decline  ;  if,  that  is  to  say, 
the  artist  feels  more  and  more  difficulty  in  express- 
ing himself  through  it,  without  saying  worse  what 
his  predecessors  have  said  already,  then  one  of 
three  things  happens — either  originality  is  perforce 
sought  for  in  exaggeration ;  or  a  new  style  is 
invented  ;  or  artistic  creation  is  abandoned  and  the 
field  is  given  up  to  mere  copyists.  Which  of  these 
events  shall  happen  depends,  no  doubt,  partly  on 
the  accident  of  genius,  but  it  depends,  I  think,  still 
more  on  the  prevailing  taste.  If,  as  has  frequently 
happened,  that  taste  be  dominated  by  the  memory 
of  past  ideals  ;  if  the  little  public  whom  the  big 
public  follow  are  content  with  nothing  that  does 
not  conform  to  certain  ancient  models,  a  period  of 
artistic  sterility  is  inevitable.  But  if  circumstances 
be  more  propitious,  then  art  continues  to  move  ; 
the  direction  and  character  of  its  movement  being 
due  partly  to  the  special  turn  of  genius  possessed 
by  the    artist  who  succeeds    in  producing  a  public 


NATURALISM   AND   AESTHETIC  59 

taste  in  harmony  with  his  powers,  and  partly  to  the 
reaction  of  the  taste  thus  created,  or  in  process  of 
creation,  upon  the  general  artistic  talent  of  the 
community. 

Even,  however,  in  those  periods  when  the 
movement  of  art  is  most  striking,  it  is  dangerous 
to  assume  that  movement  implies  progress,  if  by 
progress  be  meant  increase  in  the  power  to  excite 
czsthetic  emotion.  It  would  be  rash  to  assume  this 
even  as  regards  Music,  where  the  movement  has 
been  more  remarkable,  more  continuous,  and  more 
apparently  progressive  over  a  long  period  of  time 
than  in  any  other  art  whatever.  In  music,  the 
artist's  desire  for  originality  of  expression  has  been 
aided  generation  after  generation  by  the  discovery 
of  new  methods,  new  forms,  new  instruments.  From 
the  bare  simplicity  of  the  ecclesiastical  chant  or  the 
village  dance  to  the  ordered  complexity  of  the  modern 
score,  the  art  has  passed  through  successive  stages 
of  development,  in  each  of  which  genius  has  dis- 
covered devices  of  harmony,  devices  of  instrumenta- 
tion, and  devices  of 'rhythm  which  would  have  been 
musical  paradoxes  to  preceding  generations,  and 
became  musical  commonplaces  to  the  generations 
that  followed  after.  Yet,  what  has  been  the  net 
gain  ?  Read  through  the  long  catena  of  critical 
judgments,  from  Wagner  back  (if  you  please)  to 
Plato,  which  every  age  has  passed  on  its  own  per- 
formances, and  you  will  find  that  to  each  of  them 
its  music  has  been  as  adequate  as  ours  is  to  us.      It 


60  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 

moved  them  not  less  deeply,  nor  did  it  move  them 
differently ;  and  compositions  which  for  us  have 
lost  their  magic,  and  which  we  regard  as  at  best 
but  agreeable  curiosities,  contained  for  them  the 
secret  of  all  the  unpictured  beauties  which  music 
shows  to  her  worshippers. 

Surely  there  is  here  a  great  paradox.  The 
history  of  Literature  and  Art  is  tolerably  well  known 
to  us  for  many  hundreds  of  years.  During  that 
period  Poetry  and  Sculpture  and  Painting  have 
been  subject  to  the  usual  mutations  of  fashion ;  there 
have  been  seasons  of  sterility  and  seasons  of  plenty  ; 
schools  have  arisen  and  decayed ;  new  nations  and 
languages  have  been  pressed  into  the  service  of  Art ; 
old  nations  have  fallen  out  of  line.  But  it  is  not 
commonly  supposed  that  at  the  end  of  it  all  we  are 
much  better  off  than  the  Greeks  of  the  age  of 
Pericles  in  respect  of  the  technical  dexterity  of  the 
artist,  or  of  the  resources  which  he  has  at  his  com- 
mand. During  the  same  period,  and  measured  by  the 
same  external  standard,  the  development  of  Music 
has  been  so  great  that  it  is  not,  I  think,  easy  to  ex- 
aggerate it.  Yet,  through  all  this  vast  revolution,  the 
position  and  importance  of  the  art  as  compared  with 
other  arts  seems,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  to  have 
suffered  no  sensible  change.  It  was  as  great  four 
hundred  years  before  Christ  as  it  is  at  the  present 
moment.  It  was  as  great  in  the  sixteenth,  seven- 
teenth, and  eighteenth  centuries  as  it  is  in  the  nine- 
teenth.     How,   then,  can  we  resist   the  conclusion 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  61 

that  this  amazing  musical  development,  produced 
by  the  expenditure  of  so  much  genius,  has  added 
little  to  the  felicity  of  mankind  ;  unless,  indeed,  it 
so  happens  that  in  this  particular  art  a  steady  level 
of  aesthetic  sensation  can  only  be  maintained  by 
increasing  doses  of  aesthetic  stimulant. 


These  somewhat  desultory  observations  do  not, 
it  must  be  acknowledged,  carry  us  very  far  towards 
that  of  which  we  are  in  search,  namely,  a  theory 
of  aesthetics  in  harmony  with  naturalism.  Yet,  on 
recapitulation,  negative  conclusions  of  some  import- 
ance will,  I  think,  be  seen  to  follow  from  them.  It 
is  clear,  for  instance,  that  those  who,  like  Goethe, 
long  to  dwell  among  '  permanent  relations,'  wherever 
else  they  may  find  them,  will  at  least  not  find  them  in 
or  behind  the  feeling  of  beauty.  Such  permanent 
relations  do,  indeed,  exist,  binding  in  their  unchang- 
ing framework  the  various  forms  of  energy  and 
matter  which  make  up  the  physical  universe  ;  but 
it  is  not  the  perception  of  these  which,  either  in 
Nature  or  in  art,  stirs  within  us  aesthetic  emotion 
— else  should  we  find  our  surest  guides  to  beauty 
in  an  astronomical  chart  or  a  table  of  chemical 
equivalents,  and  nothing  would  seem  to  us  of 
less  aesthetic  significance  than  a  symphony  or  a 
love-song.  That  which  is  beautiful  is  not  the 
object  as  we  know  it  to  be — the  vibrating  molecule 


62  NATURALISM   AND   ^ESTHETIC 

and  the  undulating  ether — but  the  object  as  we 
know  it  not  to  be — glorious  with  qualities  of  colour 
or  of  sound.  Nor  can  its  beauty  be  supposed  to  last 
any  longer  than  the  transient  reaction  between  it 
and  our  special  senses,  which  are  assuredly  not 
permanent  or  important  elements  in  the  constitution 
of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

But  even  within  these  narrow  limits — narrow,  I 
mean,  compared  with  the  wide  sweep  of  our  scientific 
vision — there  seemed  to  be  no  ground  for  supposing 
that  there  is  in  Nature  any  standard  of  beauty  to 
which  all  human  tastes  tend  to  conform,  any  beauti- 
ful objects  which  all  normally  constituted  individuals 
are  moved  to  admire,  any  aesthetic  judgments  which 
can  claim  to  be  universal.  The  divergence  between 
different  tastes  is,  indeed,  not  only  notorious,  but  is 
what  we  should  have  expected.  As  our  aesthetic 
feelings  are  not  due  to  natural  selection,  natural 
selection  will  have  no  tendency  to  keep  them 
uniform  and  stable.  In  this  respect  they  differ,  as 
I  have  said,  from  ethical  sentiments  and  beliefs. 
Deviations  from  sound  morality  are  injurious  either 
to  the  individual  or  to  the  community — those  who 
indulge  in  them  are  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  ;  hence,  on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis, 
the  approximation  to  identity  in  the  accepted  codes 
of  different  nations.  But  there  is,  fortunately,  no 
natural  punishment  annexed  to  bad  taste ;  and 
accordingly  the  variation  between  tastes  has  passed 
into  a  proverb. 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  63 

Even  in  those  cases  where  some  slender  thread 
of  similarity  seemed  to  bind  together  the  tastes  of 
different  times  or  different  persons,  further  con- 
sideration showed  that  this  was  largely  due  to 
causes  which  can  by  no  possibility  be  connected 
with  any  supposed  permanent  element  in  beauty. 
The  agreement,  for  example,  between  critics,  in  so 
far  as  it  exists,  is  to  no  small  extent  an  agreement 
in  statement  and  in  analysis,  rather  than  an  agree- 
ment in  feeling ;  they  have  the  same  opinion  as  to 
the  cooking  of  the  dinner,  but  they  by  no  means  all 
eat  it  with  the  same  relish.  In  few  cases,  indeed,  do 
their  estimates  of  excellence  correspond  with  the 
living  facts  of  aesthetic  emotion  as  shown  either  in 
themselves  or  in  anybody  else.  Their  whole  pro- 
cedure, necessary  though  it  may  be  for  the  compara- 
tive estimate  of  the  worth  of  individual  artists,  unduly 
conceals  the  vast  and  arbitrary  1  changes  by  which 
the  taste  of  one  generation  is  divided  from  that  of 
another.  And  when  we  turn  from  critical  tradition 
to  the  aesthetic  likes  and  dislikes  of  men  and 
women  ;  when  we  leave  the  admirations  which  are 
professed  for  the  emotions  which  are  felt,  we  find 
in  vast  multitudes  of  cases  that  these  are  not  con- 
nected with  the  object  which  happens  to  excite  them 
by  any  permanent  aesthetic  bond  at  all.  Their  true 
determining  cause  is  to  be  sought  in  fashion,  in  that 
'tendency  to  agreement'  which  plays  so  large  and 

1  'Arbitrary,'  i.e.  not  due  to  any  causes  which  point  to  the  existence 
of  objective  beauty. 


64  NATURALISM   AND   ^ESTHETIC 

beneficent  a  part  in  social  economy.  Nor,  in  con- 
sidering the  causes  which  produce  the  rise  and 
fall  of  schools,  and  all  the  smaller  mutations  in  the 
character  of  aesthetic  production,  did  we  perceive 
more  room  for  the  belief  that  there  is  some- 
where to  be  found  a  permanent  element  in  the 
beautiful.  There  is  no  evidence  that  these  changes 
constitute  stages  in  any  process  of  gradual  approxi- 
mation to  an  unchanging  standard  ;  they  are  not 
born  of  any  strivings  after  some  ideal  archetype  ; 
they  do  not,  like  the  movements  of  science,  bring 
us  ever  nearer  to  central  and  immutable  truth.  On 
the  contrary,  though  schools  are  born,  mature,  and 
perish,  though  ancient  forms  decay,  and  new  ones 
are  continually  devised,  this  restless  movement  is, 
so  far  as  science  can  pronounce,  without  meaning 
or  purpose,  the  casual  product  of  the  quest  after 
novelty,  determined  in  its  course  by  incalculable 
forces,  by  accidents  of  genius,  by  accidents  of  public 
humour,  involving  change  but  not  progress,  and 
predestined,  perhaps,  to  end  universally,  as  at  many 
times  and  in  many  places  it  has  ended  already,  in  a 
mood  of  barren  acquiescence  in  the  repetition  of 
ancient  models,  the  very  Nirvana  of  artistic  imagi- 
nation, without  desire  and  without  pain. 

And  yet  the  persistent  and  almost  pathetic 
endeavours  of  aesthetic  theory  to  show  that  the 
beautiful  is  a  necessary  and  unchanging  element  in 
the  general  scheme  of  things,  if  they  prove  nothing 
else,  may  at  least  convince  us  that  mankind  will  not 


NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC  65 

easily  reconcile  themselves  to  the  view  which  the 
naturalistic  theory  of  the  world  would  seemingly 
compel  them  to  accept.  We  feel  no  difficulty,  per- 
haps, in  admitting  the  full  consequences  of  that 
theory  at  the  lower  end  of  the  aesthetic  scale,  in 
the  region,  for  instance,  of  bonnets  and  wall-papers. 
We  may  tolerate  it  even  when  it  deals  with  impor- 
tant elements  in  the  highest  art,  such  as  the  sense 
of  technical  excellence,  or  sympathy  with  the  crafts- 
man's skill.  But  when  we  look  back  on  those  too 
rare  moments  when  feelings  stirred  in  us  by  some 
beautiful  object  not  only  seem  wholly  to  absorb  us, 
but  to  raise  us  to  the  vision  of  things  far  above  the 
ken  of  bodily  sense  or  discursive  reason,  we  cannot 
acquiesce  in  any  attempt  at  explanation  which  con- 
fines itself  to  the  bare  enumeration  of  psychological 
and  physiological  causes  and  effects.  We  cannot 
willingly  assent  to  a  theory  which  makes  a  good 
composer  only  differ  from  a  good  cook  in  that  he 
deals  in  more  complicated  relations,  moves  in  a 
wider  circle  of  associations,  and  arouses  our  feel- 
ings through  a  different  sense.  However  little, 
therefore,  we  may  be  prepared  to  accept  any  par- 
ticular scheme  of  metaphysical  aesthetics — and  most 
of  these  appear  to  me  to  be  very  absurd — we  must 
believe  that  somewhere  and  for  some  Being  there 
shines  an  unchanging  splendour  of  beauty,  of  which 
in  Nature  and  in  Art  we  see,  each  of  us  from  our 
own  standpoint,  only  passing  gleams  and  stray  reflec- 
tions,  whose    different   aspects  we  cannot  now  co- 

F 


66  NATURALISM   AND   ESTHETIC 


ordinate,  whose  import  we  cannot  fully  comprehend 
but  which  at  least  is  something  other  than  the  chance 
play  of  subjective  sensibility  or  the  far-off  echo  of 
ancestral  lusts.  No  such  mystical  creed  can,  how- 
ever, be  squeezed  out  of  observation  and  experi- 
ment ;  Science  cannot  give  it  us  ;  nor  can  it  be  forced 
into  any  sort  of  consistency  with  the  Naturalistic 
Theory  of  the  Universe. 


67 


CHAPTER  III 

NATURALISM   AND    REASON 

I 

Among  those  who  accept  without  substantial  modifi- 
cation the  naturalistic  theory  of  the  universe  are 
some  who  find  a  compensation  for  the  general  non- 
rationality  of  Nature  in  the  fact  that,  after  all,  reason, 
human  reason,  is  Nature's  final  product.  If  the  world 
is  not  made  by  Reason,  Reason  is  at  all  events  made 
by  the  world ;  and  the  unthinking  interaction  of 
causes  and  effects  has  at  least  resulted  in  a  con- 
sciousness wherein  that  interaction  may  be  reflected 
and  understood.  This  is  not  Teleology.  Indeed,  it 
is  a  doctrine  which  leaves  no  room  for  any  belief  in 
Design.  But  in  the  minds  of  some  who  have  but 
imperfectly  grasped  their  own  doctrines,  it  appears 
capable  of  partially  meeting  the  sentimental  needs  to 
which  teleology  gives  a  fuller  satisfaction,  inasmuch 
as  reason  thus  finds  an  assured  place  in  the  scheme  of 
things,  and  is  enabled,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Chinese, 
in  some  sort  to  ennoble  its  ignoble  progenitors. 

This  theory  of  the  non-rational  origin  of  reason, 
which  is  a  necessary  corollary  of  the  naturalistic 
scheme,    has   philosophical    consequences    of    great 

F  2 


68  NATURALISM  AND   REASON 

interest,  to  some  of  which  I  have  alluded  elsewhere,1 
and  which  must  occupy  our  attention  in  a  later 
chapter  of  these  Notes.  In  the  meanwhile,  there 
are  other  aspects  of  the  subject  which  deserve  a 
moment's  consideration. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  organic  evolution 
there  is  no  distinction,  I  imagine,  to  be  drawn 
between  the  development  of  reason  and  that  of  any- 
other  faculty,  physiological  or  psychical,  by  which 
the  interests  of  the  individual  or  the  race  are  pro- 
moted. From  the  humblest  form  of  nervous  irrita- 
bility at  one  end  of  the  scale,  to  the  reasoning 
capacity  of  the  most  advanced  races  at  the  other, 
everything,  without  exception — sensation,  instinct, 
desire,  volition — has  been  produced,  directly  or  in- 
directly, by  natural  causes  acting  for  the  most  part 
on  strictly  utilitarian  principles.  Convenience,  not 
knowledge,  therefore,  has  been  the  main  end  to 
which  this  process  has  tended.  '  It  was  not  for 
purposes  of  research  that  our  senses  were  evolved,' 
nor  was  it  in  order  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the 
universe  that  we  are  endowed  with  reason. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  faculties  thus  laboriously  created  are  but 
imperfectly  fitted  to  satisfy  that  speculative  curiosity 
which  is  one  of  the  most  curious  by-products  of  the 
evolutionary  process.  The  inadequacy  of  our 
intellect,  indeed,  to  resolve  the  questions  which  it  is 
capable  of  asking  is  acknowledged  (at  least  in  words) 

1  Philosophic  Doubt,  Pt.  iii.,  ch.  xiii. 


NATURALISM   AND   REASON  69 

both  by  students  of  science  and  by  students  of 
theology.  But  they  do  not  seem  so  much  impressed 
with  the  inadequacy  of  our  senses.  Yet,  if  the 
current  doctrine  of  evolution  be  true,  we  have  no 
choice  but  to  admit  that  with  the  great  mass  of 
natural  fact  we  are  probably  brought  into  no  sensible 
relation  at  all.  I  am  not  referring  here  merely  to 
the  limitations  imposed  upon  such  senses  as  we 
possess,  but  to  the  total  absence  of  an  indefinite 
number  of  senses  which  conceivably  we  might  possess, 
but  do  not.  There  are  sounds  which  the  ear  cannot 
hear,  there  are  sights  which  the  eye  cannot  see.  But 
besides  all  these  there  must  be  countless  aspects  of 
external  Nature  of  which  we  have  no  knowledge  ;  of 
which,  owing  to  the  absence  of  appropriate  organs, 
we  can  form  no  conception  ;  which  imagination  can- 
not picture  nor  language  express.  Had  Voltaire 
been  acquainted  with  the  theory  of  evolution,  he 
would  not  have  put  forward  his  Micromegas  so  much 
as  an  illustration  of  a  paradox  which  cannot  be  dis- 
proved, as  of  a  truth  which  cannot  be  doubted.  For 
to  suppose  that  a  course  of  development  carried  out, 
not  with  the  object  of  extending  knowledge  or  satis- 
fying curiosity,  but  solely  with  that  of  promoting  life, 
on  an  area  so  insignificant  as  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
between  limits  of  temperature  and  pressure  so 
narrow,  and  under  general  conditions  so  exceptional, 
should  have  ended  in  supplying  us  with  senses  even 
approximately  adequate  to  the  apprehension  of 
Nature  in  all  her  complexities,  is  to  believe  in  a  co- 


70  NATURALISM   AND   REASON 

incidence  more  astounding  than  the  most  audacious 
novelist  has  ever  employed  to  cut  the  knot  of  some 
entangled  tale. 

For  it  must  be  recollected  that  the  same  natural 
forces  which  tend  to  the  evolution  of  organs  which 
are  useful  tend  also  to  the  suppression  of  organs  that 
are  useless.  Not  only  does  Nature  take  no  interest 
in  our  general  education,  not  only  is  she  quite  indif- 
ferent to  the  growth  of  enlightenment,  unless  the 
enlightenment  improve  our  chances  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  but  she  positively  objects  to  the  very 
existence  of  faculties  by  which  these  ends  might, 
perhaps,  be  attained.  She  regards  them  as  mere 
hindrances  in  the  only  race  which  she  desires  to  see 
run  ;  and  not  content  with  refusing  directly  to  create 
any  faculty  except  for  a  practical  purpose,  she 
immediately  proceeds  to  destroy  faculties  already 
created  when  their  practical  purpose  has  ceased  ;  for 
thus  does  the  eye  of  the  cave-born  fish  degenerate 
and  the  instinct  of  the  domesticated  animal  decay. 
Those,  then,  who  are  inclined  to  the  opinion  that 
between  our  organism  and  its  environments  there  is 
a  correspondence  which,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
general  knowledge,  is  even  approximately  adequate, 
must  hold,  in  thejirst  place,  that  samples  or  sugges- 
tions of  every  sort  of  natural  manifestation  are  to  be 
found  in  our  narrow  and  limited  world ;  in  the  second 
place,  that  these  samples  are  of  a  character  which 
would  permit  of  nervous  tissue  being  so  modified  by 
selection  as  to  respond  specifically  to  their  action  ;  in 


NATURALISM  AND   REASON  71 

the  third  place,  that  such  specific  modifications  were 
not  only  possible,  but  would  have  proved  useful  at 
the  period  of  evolution  during  which  our  senses  in 
their  present  shape  were  developed ;  and  in  the 
fourth  place,  that  these  modifications  would  have 
proved  useful  enough  to  make  it  worth  while  to  use 
up,  for  the  purpose  of  producing  them,  material 
which  might  have  been,  and  has  been,  otherwise 
employed. 

All  these  propositions  seem  to  me  improbable, 
the  first  two  of  them  incredible.1  It  is  impossible, 
therefore,  to  resist  the  conviction  that  there  must  be 
an  indefinite  number  of  aspects  of  Nature  respecting 
which  science  never   can  give  us  any  information, 

1  It  may  perhaps  be  said  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  be 
specifically  affected  by  each  particular  kind  of  energy  in  order  either 
to  discover  its  existence  or  to  investigate  its  character.  It  is  enough 
that  among  its  effects  should  be  some  which  are  cognisable  by  our 
actual  senses,  that  it  should  modify  in  some  way  the  world  we  know, 
that  it  should  intervene  perceptibly  in  that  part  of  the  general  system 
to  which  our  organism  happens  to  be  immediately  connected.  This 
is  no  doubt  true,  and  our  knowledge  of  electricity  and  magnetism 
(among  other  things)  is  there  to  prove  it.  But  let  it  be  noted  how 
slender  and  how  accidental  was  the  clue  which  led  us  to  the  first 
beginnings,  from  which  all  our  knowledge  of  these  great  phenomena 
is  derived.  Directly  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  in  relation  with 
our  organs  of  perception  at  all  (notwithstanding  the  fact  that  light  is 
now  regarded  as  an  electro-magnetic  phenomenon)  and  their  i?idirect 
relation  with  them  is  so  slight  that  probably  no  amount  of  mere  obser- 
vation could,  in  the  absence  of  experiment,  have  given  us  a  notion  of 
their  magnitude  or  importance.  They  were  not  sought  for  to  fill  a 
gap  whose  existence  had  been  demonstrated  by  calculation.  Their 
discovery  was  no  inevitable  step  in  the  onward  march  of  scientific 
knowledge.  They  were  stumbled  upon  by  accident ;  and  few  would 
be  bold  enough  to  assert  that  if,  for  example,  the  human  race  had 
not  happened  to  possess  iron,  magnetism  would  ever  have  presented 
itself  as  a  subject  requiring  investigation  at  all. 


72  NATURALISM  AND  REASON 

even  in  our  dreams.  We  must  conceive  ourselves  as 
feeling  our  way  about  this  dim  corner  of  the  illimit- 
able world,  like  children  in  a  darkened  room,  en- 
compassed by  we  know  not  what ;  a  little  better 
endowed  with  the  machinery  of  sensation  than  the 
protozoon,  yet  poorly  provided  indeed  as  compared 
with  a  being,  if  such  a  one  could  be  conceived, 
whose  senses  were  adequate  to  the  infinite  variety 
of  material  Nature.  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  we  are 
possessed  of  reason,  and  that  protozoa  are  not. 
But  even  reason,  on  the  naturalistic  theory,  occupies 
no  elevated  or  permanent  position  in  the  hierarchy 
of  phenomena.  It  is  not  the  final  result  of  a  great 
process,  the  roof  and  crown  of  things.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is,  as  I  have  said,  no  more  than  one  of  many 
experiments  for  increasing  our  chance  of  survival, 
and,  among  these,  by  no  means  the  most  important 
or  the  most  enduring. 


People  sometimes  talk,  indeed,  as  if  it  was  the 
difficult  and  complex  work  connected  with  the  main- 
tenance of  life  that  was  performed  by  intellect.  But 
there  can  be  no  greater  delusion.  The  management 
of  the  humblest  organ  would  be  infinitely  beyond 
our  mental  capacity,  were  it  possible  for  us  to  be 
entrusted  with  it ;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  only 
in  the  simplest  jobs  that  discursive  reason  is  per- 
mitted to  have  a  hand  at  all  ;  our  tendency  to  take 
a  different  view  being  merely  the  self-importance  of 


NATURALISM  AND   REASON  73 

a  child  who,  because  it  is  allowed  to  stamp  the 
letters,  imagines  that  it  conducts  the  correspondence. 
The  best  way  of  looking  at  mind  on  the  naturalistic 
hypothesis  is,  perhaps,  to  regard  it  as  an  instrument 
for  securing  a  flexibility  of  adaptation  which  instinct 
alone  is  not  able  to  attain.  Instinct  is  incompar- 
ably the  better  machine  in  every  respect  save  one. 
It  works  more  smoothly,  with  less  friction,  with  far 
greater  precision  and  accuracy.  But  it  is  not  adapt- 
able. Many  generations  and  much  slaughter  are 
required  to  breed  it  into  a  race.  Once  acquired,  it 
can  be  modified  or  expelled  only  by  the  same  harsh 
and  tedious  methods.  Mind,  on  the  other  hand, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  organic  evolution,  may  be 
considered  as  an  inherited  faculty  for  self-adjustment ; 
and  though,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  note, 
the  limits  within  which  such  adjustment  is  permitted 
are  exceedingly  narrow,  within  those  limits  it  is 
doubtless  exceedingly  valuable. 

But  even  here  one  of  the  principal  functions  of 
mind  is  to  create  habits  by  which,  when  they  are 
fully  formed,  it  is  itself  supplanted.  If  the  conscious 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends  was  always  necessary 
in  order  to  perform  even  those  few  functions  for  the 
first  performance  of  which  conscious  adaptation  was 
originally  required,  life  would  be  frittered  away  in 
doing  badly,  but  with  deliberation,  some  small  frac- 
tion of  that  which  we  now  do  well  without  any 
deliberation  at  all.  The  formation  of  habits  is, 
therefore,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  a  necessary 


74  NATURALISM   AND   REASON 

preliminary  to  the  '  higher '  uses  of  mind  ;  for  it,  and  it 
alone,  sets  attention  and  intelligence  free  to  do  work 
from  which  they  would  otherwise  be  debarred  by 
their  absorption  in  the  petty  needs  of  daily  existence. 

But  while  it  is  thus  plain  that  the  formation  of 
habits  is  an  essential  pre-requisite  of  mental  develop- 
ment, it  would  also  seem  that  it  constitutes  the  first 
step  in  a  process  which,  if  thoroughly  successful,  would 
end  in  the  destruction,  if  not  of  consciousness  it- 
self, at  least  of  the  higher  manifestation  of  conscious- 
ness, such  as  will,  attention,  and  discursive  reason.1 
All  these,  as  we  may  suppose,  will  be  gradually 
superseded  in  an  increasing  number  of  departments 
of  human  activity  by  the  growth  of  instincts  or 
inherited  habits,  by  which  even  such  adjustments 
between  the  organism  and  its  surroundings  as  now 
seem  most  dependent  on  self-conscious  mind  may  be 
successfully  effected. 

These  are  prophecies,  however,  which  concern 
themselves  with  a  very  remote  future,  and  for  my 
part  I  do  not  ask  the  reader  to  regard  their  fulfil- 
ment as  an  inexorable  necessity.  It  is  enough  if 
they  mark  with  sufficient  emphasis  the  place  which 
Mind,  in  its  higher  manifestations,  occupies  in  the 
scheme  of  things,  as  this  is  presented  to  us  by  the 
naturalistic  hypothesis.  Mr.  Spencer,  who  pierces  the 
future  with  a  surer  gaze  than  I  can  make  the  least 

1  Empirical  psychologists  are  not  agreed  as  to  whether  the  appa- 
rent unconsciousness  which  accompanies  completed  habits  is  real  or 
not.  It  is  unnecessary  for  the  purpose  of  my  argument  that  this  point 
should  be  determined. 


NATURALISM   AND   REASON  75 

pretence  to,  looks  confidently  forward  to  a  time  when 
the  relation  of  man  to  his  surroundings  will  be  so 
happily  contrived  that  the  reign  of  absolute  right- 
eousness  will  prevail ;  conscience,  grown  unneces- 
sary, will  be  dispensed  with ;  the  path  of  least 
resistance  will  be  the  path  of  virtue  ;  and  not  the 
1  broad,'  but  the  '  narrow  way,'  will  '  lead  to  destruc- 
tion.' These  excellent  consequences  seem  to  me 
to  flow  very  smoothly  and  satisfactorily  from  his 
particular  doctrine  of  evolution,  combined  with  his 
particular  doctrine  of  morals.  But  I  confess  that  my 
own  personal  gratification  at  the  prospect  is  some- 
what dimmed  by  the  reflection  that  the  same  kind 
of  causes  which  make  conscience  superfluous  will 
relieve  us  from  the  necessity  of  intellectual  effort, 
and  that  by  the  time  we  are  all  perfectly  good  we 
shall  also  be  all  perfectly  idiotic. 

I  know  not  how  it  may  strike  the  reader  ;  but  I  at 
least  am  left  sensibly  poorer  by  this  deposition  of 
Reason  from  its  ancient  position  as  the  Ground  of 
all  existence,  to  that  of  an  expedient  among  other 
expedients  for  the  maintenance  of  organic  life  ;  an 
expedient,  moreover,  which  is  temporary  in  its 
character  and  insignificant  in  its  effects.  An  ir- 
rational  Universe  which  accidentally  turns  out  a  few 
reasoning  animals  at  one  corner  of  it,  as  a  rich  man 
may  experiment  at  one  end  of  his  park  with  some 
curious  'sport'  accidentally  produced  among  his  flocks 
and  herds,  is  a  Universe  which  we  might  well  despise 
if  we  did  not  ourselves  share  its  degradation.      But 


76  NATURALISM   AND   REASON 

must  we  not  inevitably  share  it  ?  Pascal  somewhere 
observes  that  Man,  however  feeble,  is  yet  in  his  very 
feebleness  superior  to  the  blind  forces  of  Nature; 
for  he  knows  himself,  and  they  do  not.  I  confess 
that  on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis  I  see  no  such 
superiority.  If,  indeed,  there  were  a  Rational  Author 
of  Nature,  and  if  in  any  degree,  even  the  most  in- 
significant, we  shared  His  attributes,  we  might  well 
conceive  ourselves  as  of  finer  essence  and  more 
intrinsic  worth  than  the  material  world  which  we 
inhabit,  immeasurable  though  it  may  be.  But  if  we 
be  the  creation  of  that  world  ;  if  it  made  us  what  we 
are,  and  will  again  unmake  us ;  how  then  ?  The 
sense  of  humour,  not  the  least  precious  among  the 
gifts  with  which  the  clash  of  atoms  has  endowed  us, 
should  surely  prevent  us  assuming  any  airs  of 
superiority  over  members  of  the  same  family  of 
'phenomena,'  more  permanent  and  more  powerful 
than  ourselves. 


77 


CHAPTER    IV 

SUMMARY   AND    CONCLUSION    OF    PART    I 

I  have  now  completed  my  survey  of  certain  opinions 
which  naturalism  seems  to  require  us  to  hold 
respecting  important  matters  connected  with 
Righteousness,  Beauty,  and  Reason.  The  survey 
has  necessarily  been  concise  ;  but,  concise  though  it 
has  been,  it  has,  perhaps,  sufficiently  indicated  the 
inner  antagonism  which  exists  between  the  Natural- 
istic system  and  the  feelings  which  the  best  among 
mankind,  including  many  who  may  be  counted  as 
adherents  of  that  system,  have  hitherto  considered 
as  the  most  valuable  possessions  of  our  race.  If 
naturalism  be  true,  or,  rather,  if  it  be  the  whole  truth, 
then  is  morality  but  a  bare  catalogue  of  utilitarian 
precepts  ;  beauty  but  the  chance  occasion  of  a  pass- 
ing pleasure ;  reason  but  the  dim  passage  from  one 
set  of  unthinking  habits  to  another.  All  that  gives 
dignity  to  life,  all  that  gives  value  to  effort,  shrinks 
and  fades  under  the  pitiless  glare  of  a  creed  like 
this ;  and  even  curiosity,  the  hardiest  among  the 
nobler  passions  of  the  soul,  must  languish  under  the 
conviction  that  neither  for  this  generation  nor  for 
any  that  shall  come  after  it,  neither  in  this  life  nor 


78      SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION   OF   PART   I 

in  another,  will  the  tie  be  wholly  loosened  by  which 
reason,  not  less  than  appetite,  is  held  in  hereditary 
bondage  to  the  service  of  our  material  needs. 

I  am  anxious,  however,  not  to  overstate  my 
case.  It  is  of  course  possible,  to  take  for  a  moment 
aesthetics  as  our  text,  that  whatever  be  our  views 
concerning  naturalism,  we  shall  still  like  good  poetry 
and  good  music,  and  that  we  shall  not,  perhaps,  find 
if  we  sum  up  our  pleasures  at  the  year's  end,  that  the 
total  satisfaction  derived  from  the  contemplation  of 
Art  and  Nature  is  very  largely  diminished  by  the 
fact  that  our  philosophy  allows  us  to  draw  no 
important  distinction  between  the  beauties  of  a  sauce 
and  the  beauties  of  a  symphony.  Both  may  continue 
to  afford  the  man  with  a  good  palate  and  a  good  ear 
a  considerable  amount  of  satisfaction  ;  and  if  all  we 
desire  is  to  find  in  literature  and  in  art  something 
that  will  help  us  either  '  to  enjoy  life  or  to  endure 
it,'  I  do  not  contend  that,  by  any  theory  of  the 
beautiful,  of  this  we  shall  wholly  be  deprived. 

Nevertheless  there  is,  even  so,  a  loss  not  lightly 
to  be  underrated,  a  loss  that  falls  alike  on  him  that 
produces  and  on  him  that  enjoys.  Poets  and  artists 
have  been  wont  to  consider  themselves,  and  to  be 
considered  by  others,  as  prophets  and  seers,  the 
revealers  under  sensuous  forms  of  hidden  mysteries, 
the  symbolic  preachers  of  eternal  truths.  All  this 
is,  of  course,  on  the  naturalistic  theory,  very  absurd. 
They  minister,  no  doubt,  with  success  to  some  phase, 
usually  a  very  transitory  phase,  of  public  taste ;  but 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION    OF   PART   I      79 

they  have  no  mysteries  to  reveal,  and  what  they  tell 
us,  though  it  may  be  very  agreeable,  is  seldom  true, 
and  never  important.  This  is  a  conclusion  which, 
howsoever  it  may  accord  with  sound  philosophy,  is 
not  likely  to  prove  very  stimulating  to  the  artist,  nor 
does  it  react  with  less  unfortunate  effect  upon  those 
to  whom  the  artist  appeals.  Even  if  their  feeling 
of  delight  in  the  beautiful  is  not  marred  for  them  in 
immediate  experience,  it  must  suffer  in  memory  and 
reflection.  For  such  a  feeling  carries  with  it,  at 
its  best,  an  inevitable  reference,  not  less  inevitable 
because  it  is  obscure,  to  a  Reality  which  is  eternal 
and  unchanging ;  and  we  cannot  accept  without 
suffering  the  conviction  that  in  making  such  a 
reference  we  were  merely  the  dupes  of  our  emotions, 
the  victims  of  a  temporary  hallucination  induced,  as 
it  were,  by  some  spiritual  drug. 

But  if  on  the  naturalistic  hypothesis  the  senti- 
ments associated  with  beauty  seem  like  a  poor  jest 
played  on  us  by  Nature  for  no  apparent  purpose, 
those  that  gather  round  morality  are,  so  to  speak,  a  de- 
liberate fraud  perpetrated  for  a  well-defined  end.  The 
consciousness  of  freedom,  the  sense  of  responsibility, 
the  authority  of  conscience,  the  beauty  of  holiness, 
the  admiration  for  self-devotion,  the  sympathy  with 
suffering — these  and  all  the  train  of  beliefs  and 
feelings  from  which  spring  noble  deeds  and  generous 
ambitions  are  seen  to  be  mere  devices  for  securing 
to  societies,  if  not  to  individuals,  some  competitive 
advantage  in  the  struggle  for  existence.     They  are 


8o      SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION   OF   PART    I 

not  worse,  but  neither  are  they  better,  than  the 
thousand-and-one  appetites  and  instincts,  many  of 
them,  as  I  have  said,  cruel,  and  many  of  them  dis- 
gusting, created  by  similar  causes  in  order  to  carry 
out  through  all  organic  Nature  the  like  unprofitable 
ends  ;  and  if  we  think  them  better,  as  in  our  unre- 
flecting moments  we  are  apt  to  do,  this,  on  the 
Naturalistic  hypothesis,  is  only  because  some  delusion 
of  the  kind  is  necessary  in  order  to  induce  us  to  per- 
form actions  which  in  themselves  can  contribute 
nothing  to  our  personal  gratification. 

The  inner  discord  which  finds  expression  in 
conclusions  like  these  largely  arises,  as  the  reader 
sees,  from  a  want  of  balance  or  proportion  between 
the  range  of  our  intellectual  vision  and  the  circum- 
stances of  our  actual  existence.  Our  capacity  for 
standing  outside  ourselves  and  taking  stock  of  the 
position  which  we  occupy  in  the  universe  of  things 
has  been  enormously  and,  it  would  seem,  unfortu- 
nately, increased  by  recent  scientific  discovery.  We 
have  learned  too  much.  We  are  educated  above 
that  position  in  life  in  which  it  has  pleased  Nature 
to  place  us.  We  can  no  longer  accept  it  without 
criticism  and  without  examination.  We  insist  on 
interrogating  that  material  system  which,  according 
to  naturalism,  is  the  true  author  of  our  being  as  to 
whence  we  come  and  whither  we  go,  what  are  the 
causes  which  have  made  us  what  we  are,  and  what 
are  the  purposes  which  our  existence  subserves.  And 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  answers  given  to  this 


SUMMARY   AND    CONCLUSION   OF   PARTI       81 

question  by  our  oracle  are  extremely  unsatisfactory. 
We  have  learned  to  measure  space,  and  we  perceive 
that  our  dwelling-place  is  but  a  mere  point,  wander- 
ing with  its  companions,  apparently  at  random, 
through  the  wilderness  of  stars.  We  have  learned 
to  measure  time,  and  we  perceive  that  the  life  not 
merely  of  the  individual  or  of  the  nation,  but  of  the 
whole  race,  is  brief,  and  apparently  quite  unimportant. 
We  have  learned  to  unravel  causes,  and  we  perceive 
that  emotions  and  aspirations  whose  very  being 
seems  to  hang  on  the  existence  of  realities  of  which 
naturalism  takes  no  account,  are  in  their  origin 
contemptible  and  in  their  suggestion  mendacious. 

To  me  it  appears  certain  that  this  clashing 
between  beliefs  and  feelings  must  ultimately  prove 
fatal  to  one  or  the  other.  Make  what  allowance 
you  please  for  the  stupidity  of  mankind,  take  the 
fullest  account  of  their  really  remarkable  power  of 
letting  their  speculative  opinions  follow  one  line  of 
development  and  their  practical  ideals  another,  yet 
the  time  must  come  when  reciprocal  action  will 
perforce  bring  opinions  and  ideals  into  some  kind  of 
agreement  and  congruity.  If,  then,  naturalism  is  to 
hold  the  field,  the  feelings  and  opinions  inconsistent 
with  naturalism  must  be  foredoomed  to  suffer 
change ;  and  how,  when  that  change  shall  come 
about,  it  can  do  otherwise  than  eat  all  nobility  out 
of  our  conception  of  conduct  and  all  worth  out  of 
our  conception  of  life,  I  am  wholly  unable  to 
understand. 


82      SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION   OF   PART   I 

I  am  aware  that  many  persons  are  in  the  habit 
of  subjecting  these  views  to  an  experimental  refuta- 
tion by  pointing  to  a  great  many  excellent  people 
who  hold,  in  more  or  less  purity,  the  naturalistic 
creed,  but  who,  nevertheless,  offer  prominent 
examples  of  that  habit  of  mind  with  which,  as  I  have 
been  endeavouring  to  show,  the  naturalistic  creed  is 
essentially  inconsistent.  Naturalism — so  runs  the 
argument — co-exists  in  the  case  of  Messrs.  A.,  B.,  C, 
&c,  with  the  most  admirable  exhibition  of  unselfish 
virtue.  If  this  be  so  in  the  case  of  a  hundred  indi- 
viduals, why  not  in  the  case  of  ten  thousand  ?  If 
in  the  case  of  ten  thousand,  why  not  in  the  case  of 
humanity  at  large  ?  Now,  to  the  facts  on  which  this 
reasoning  proceeds  I  raise  no  objection.  I  desire 
neither  to  ignore  the  existence  nor  to  minimise  the 
merits  of  these  shining  examples  of  virtue  unsup- 
ported by  religion.  But  though  the  facts  be  true, 
the  reasoning  based  on  them  will  not  bear  close 
examination.  Biologists  tell  us  of  parasites  which 
live,  and  can  only  live,  within  the  bodies  of  animals 
more  highly  organised  than  they.  For  them  their 
luckless  host  has  to  find  food,  to  digest  it,  and  to 
convert  it  into  nourishment  which  they  can  consume 
without  exertion  and  assimilate  without  difficulty. 
Their  structure  is  of  the  simplest  kind.  Their  host 
sees  for  them  so  they  need  no  eyes  ;  he  hears  for 
them,  so  they  need  no  ears  ;  he  works  for  them  and 
contrives  for  them,  so  they  need  but  feeble  muscles 
and  an  undeveloped  nervous  system.     But  are  we 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION    OF   PART   I      83 

to  conclude  from  this  that  for  the  animal  kingdom 
eyes  and  ears,  powerful  limbs  and  complex  nerves, 
are  superfluities  ?  They  are  superfluities  for  the 
parasite  only  because  they  have  first  been  necessities 
for  the  host,  and  when  the  host  perishes  the  parasite, 
in  their  absence,  is  not  unlikely  to  perish  also. 

So  it  is  with  those  persons  who  claim  to  show  by 
their  example  that  naturalism  is  practically  consistent 
with  the  maintenance  of  ethical  ideals  with  which 
naturalism  has  no  natural  affinity.  Their  spiritual 
life  is  parasitic  :  it  is  sheltered  by  convictions  which 
belong,  not  to  them,  but  to  the  society  of  which  they 
form  a  part  ;  it  is  nourished  by  processes  in  which 
they  take  no  share.  And  when  those  convictions 
decay,  and  those  processes  come  to  an  end,  the 
alien  life  which  they  have  maintained  can  scarce  be 
expected  to  outlast  them. 

I  am  not  aware  that  anyone  has  as  yet  en- 
deavoured to  construct  the  catechism  of  the  future, 
purged  of  every  element  drawn  from  any  other 
source  than  the  naturalistic  creed.  It  is  greatly  to 
be  desired  that  this  task  should  be  undertaken  in  an 
impartial  spirit ;  and  as  a  smail  contribution  to  such 
an  object,  I  offer  the  following  pairs  of  contrasted 
propositions,  the  first  members  of  each  pair  repre- 
senting current  teaching,  the  second  representing 
the  teaching  which  ought  to  be  substituted  for  it  if 
the  naturalistic  theory  be  accepted. 

A.  The  universe  is  the  creation  of  Reason,  and 
all  things  work  together  towards  a  reasonable  end. 

G  2 


84      SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION   OF   PART   I 

B.  So  far  as  we  can  tell,  reason  is  to  be  found 
neither  in  the  beginning  of  things  nor  in  their  end  ; 
and  though  everything  is  predetermined,  nothing  is 
fore-ordained. 

A.  Creative  reason  is  interfused  with  infinite 
love. 

B.  As  reason  is  absent,  so  also  is  love.  The 
universal  flux  is  ordered  by  blind  causation  alone. 

A.  There  is  a  moral  law,  immutable,  eternal ; 
in  its  governance  all  spirits  find  their  true  freedom 
and  their  most  perfect  realisation.  Though  it  be 
adequate  to  infinite  goodness  and  infinite  intelligence, 
it  may  be  understood,  even  by  man,  sufficiently  for 
his  guidance. 

B.  Among  the  causes  by  which  the  course  of 
organic  and  social  development  has  been  blindly 
determined  are  pains,  pleasures,  instincts,  appetites, 
disgusts,  religions,  moralities,  superstitions  ;  the  senti- 
ment of  what  is  noble  and  instrinsically  worthy  ;  the 
sentiment  of  what  is  ignoble  and  intrinsically  worth- 
less. From  a  purely  scientific  point  of  view  these 
all  stand  on  an  equality  ;  all  are  action-producing 
causes  developed,  not  to  improve,  but  simply  to 
perpetuate,  the  species. 

A.  In  the  possession  of  reason  and  in  the  enjoys 
ment  of  beauty,  we  in  some  remote  way  share  the 
nature  of  that  infinite  Personality  in  Whom  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being. 

B.  Reason  is  but  the  psychological  expression 
of  certain    physiological    processes    in  the  cerebral 


SUMMARY    AND    CONCLUSION   OF  PART   I      85 

hemispheres  ;  it  is  no  more  than  an  expedient  among 
many  expedients  by  which  the  individual  and  the 
race  are  preserved  ;  just  as  Beauty  is  no  more  than 
the  name  for  such  varying  and  accidental  attributes 
of  the  material  or  moral  worlds  as  may  happen  for 
the  moment  to  stir  our  aesthetic  feelings. 

A.  Every  human  soul  is  of  infinite  value,  eternal, 
free  ;  no  human  being,  therefore,  is  so  placed  as  not 
to  have  within  his  reach,  in  himself  and  others, 
objects  adequate  to  infinite  endeavour. 

B.  The  individual  perishes ;  the  race  itself  does 
not  endure.  Few  can  flatter  themselves  that  their 
conduct  has  any  appreciable  effect  upon  its  remoter 
destinies  ;  and  of  those  few,  none  can  say  with 
reasonable  assurance  that  the  effect  which  they  are 
destined  to  produce  is  the  one  which  they  desire. 
Even  if  we  were  free,  therefore,  our  ignorance  would 
make  us  helpless  ;  and  it  may  be  almost  a  consolation 
to  reflect  that  our  conduct  was  determined  for  us  by 
unthinking  forces  in  a  remote  past,  and  that  if  we 
are  impotent  to  foresee  its  consequences,  we  were 
not  less  impotent  to  arrange  its  causes. 

The  doctrines  embodied  in  the  second  member 
of  each  of  these  alternatives  may  be  true,  or  may 
at  least  represent  the  nearest  approach  to  truth  of 
which  we  are  at  present  capable.  Into  this  question 
I  do  not  yet  inquire.  But  if  they  are  to  constitute 
the  dogmatic  scaffolding  by  which  our  educational 
system  is  to  be  supported  ;  if  it  is  to  be  in  harmony 
with    principles    like    these   that  the  child  is   to  be 


86      SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION   OF   PART   I 

taught  at  its  mother's  knee,  and  the  young  man  is  to 
build  up  the  ideals  of  his  life,  then,  unless  I  greatly 
mistake,  it  will  be  found  that  the  inner  discord 
which  exists,  and  which  must  gradually  declare  itself, 
between  the  emotions  proper  to  naturalism  and 
those  which  have  actually  grown  up  under  the 
shadow  of  traditional  convictions,  will  at  no  distant 
date  most  unpleasantly  translate  itself  into  practice. 


PART    II 

SOME    REASONS    FOR   BELIEF 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    PHILOSOPHIC    BASIS    OF    NATURALISM 
I 

So  far  we  have  been  occupied  in  weighing  certain 
indirect  and  collateral  consequences  which  seem 
likely  to  flow  from  a  particular  theory  of  the  world 
in  which  we  live.  The  theory  itself  was  taken  for 
granted.  No  attempt  was  made  to  examine  its 
foundations  or  to  test  their  strength  ;  no  comparison 
between  its  different  parts  was  instituted  for  the 
purpose  of  determining  how  far  they  really  con- 
stituted a  coherent  and  intelligible  whole.  We 
accepted  it  as  we  found  it,  turning  with  averted 
eyes  even  from  the  speculative  problems  which  lay 
closest  to  the  track  of  our  immediate  investigation. 

This  course  is  not  the  most  logical ;  and  it  might 
appear  a  more  fitting  procedure  to  reserve  our 
consideration  of  the  consequences  of  a  system  until 
some  conclusion  had  been  arrived  at  concerning  its 
truth.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  ordinary  habit  of 
mankind  in  dealing  with  problems  in  which  questions 
of  abstract  theory  and  daily  practice  are  closely 
intertwined  ;  and  even  philosophers  show  a  kindly 
reluctance  too  closely  to  examine  the  claims  of  creeds 
whose  consequences  are  in  strict  accord  with  contem- 


9° 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 


porary  sentiment.  I  have  a  better  reason,  however, 
to  offer  for  the  order  here  selected  than  can  be  de- 
rived from  precedent  or  example,  a  reason  based  on 
the  fact  that,  had  I  begun  these  Notes  with  the  dis- 
cussion on  which  I  am  about  to  embark,  their  whole 
character  would  probably  have  been  misunderstood. 
They  would  have  been  regarded  as  contributions  to 
philosophical  discussion  of  a  kind  which  would  only 
interest  the  specialist ;  and  the  general  reader,  to 
whom  I  desire  particularly  to  appeal,  would  have 
abandoned  their  perusal  in  disgust.  For  I  cannot 
deny,  either  that  I  am  about  to  ask  him  to  accompany 
me  in  a  search  after  first  principles  ;  or  (which  is, 
perhaps,  worse)  that  the  search  is  destined  to  be  in- 
effectual. He  will  not  only  have  to  occupy  himself 
with  arguments  of  a  remote  and  abstract  kind,  and 
for  a  moment  to  disturb  the  placid  depths  of  ordinary 
thought  with  unaccustomed  soundings,  but  the  argu- 
ments will  be  to  all  appearance  barren,  and  the 
soundings  will  not  find  bottom.  The  full  justification 
for  a  procedure  seemingly  so  futile  can  only  be 
found  in  the  chapters  which  follow,  and  in  the  general 
drift  of  the  discussion  taken  as  a  whole  ;  but  in  the 
meanwhile  the  reader  will  be  able  to  appreciate  my 
immediate  object  if  he  will  bear  in  mind  the  precise 
point  at  which  we  have  arrived. 

Let  him  remember,  then,  that  the  result  of  the 
inquiry  instituted  into  the  practical  tendencies  of 
the  naturalistic  theory  is  to  show  them  to  be  well- 
nigh  intolerable.     The  theory,  no  doubt,  may  for  all 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     91 

that  be  true,  since  it  must  candidly  be  admitted  that 
there  is  no  naturalistic  reason  for  anticipating  any 
pre-established  harmony  between  truth  and  ex- 
pediency  in  the  higher  regions  of  speculation.  But 
at  least  we  are  called  upon  to  make  a  very  searching 
inquiry  before  we  admit  that  it  is  true.  We  are  not 
here  concerned  with  any  mere  curiosity  of  dialectics, 
with  the  quest  for  a  kind  of  knowledge  which,  how- 
ever interesting  to  the  few,  yet  bears  no  fruit  for 
ordinary  human  use.  On  the  contrary,  the  issues 
that  have  to  be  decided  are  practical,  if  anything 
is  practical.  They  touch  at  every  point  the  most 
permanent  interests  of  man,  individual  and  social : 
and  any  procedure  is  preferable  to  a  complacent 
acquiescence  in  the  loss  of  all  the  fairest  provinces 
in  our  spiritual  inheritance. 

This  is  a  fact  which  has  long  been  perceived  by 
the  defenders  of  all  the  creeds,  philosophical  or 
theological,  with  which  the  pretensions  of  naturalism 
are  in  conflict.  You  will  not  open  a  modern  work 
of  apologetics,  for  instance,  without  finding  in  it 
some  endeavour  to  show  that  the  naturalistic  theory 
is  insufficient,  and  that  it  requires  to  be  supple- 
mented by  precisely  the  very  system  in  whose 
interests  that  particular  work  was  written.  This, 
no  doubt,  is  as  it  should  be  ;  and  on  this  plan  a  great 
deal  of  valuable  criticism  and  interesting  speculation 
has  been  produced.  It  is  .not,  however,  exactly  the 
plan  which  can  be  here  pursued,  partly  because 
these  Notes  contain,  not  a  system  of  theology,  but 


92 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 


only  an  introduction  to  theology ;  and  partly  be- 
cause I  have  always  found  it  easier  to  satisfy  my- 
self of  the  insufficiency  of  naturalism  than  of  the 
absolute  sufficiency  of  any  of  the  schemes  by  which 
it  has  been  sought  to  modify  or  to  complete  it. 

In  this  chapter,  however,  I  shall  follow  an  easier 
line  of  march,  the  nature  of  which  the  reader  will 
readily  understand  if  he  considers  the  two  elements 
composing  the  naturalistic  creed  :  the  one  positive, 
consisting,  broadly  speaking,  of  the  teaching  con- 
tained in  the  general  body  of  the  natural  sciences ; 
the  other  negative,  expressed  in  the  doctrine  that 
beyond  these  limits,  wherever  they  may  happen  to 
lie,  nothing  is,  and  nothing  can  be,  known.  Now, 
the  usual  practice  with  those  who  dissent  from  this 
general  view  is,  as  I  have  said,  to  choose  the  second, 
or  negative,  half  of  it  for  attack.  They  tell  us,  for 
example,  that  the  knowledge  of  phenomena  given 
by  science  carries  with  it  by  necessary  implication 
the  knowledge  of  that  which  is  above  phenomena ; 
or,  again,  that  the  moral  nature  of  man  points  to  the 
reality  of  ends  and  principles  which  cannot  be  ex- 
hausted by  any  investigation  into  a  merely  natural 
world  of  causally  related  objects.  Without  the 
least  underrating  such  lines  of  investigation,  I 
purpose  here  to  consider,  not  the  negative,  but  the 
positive  half  of  the  naturalistic  system.  I  shall  leave 
for  the  moment  unchallenged  the  statement  that 
beyond  the  natural  sciences  knowledge  is  impossible  ; 
but  I  shall  venture,  instead,  to  ask  a  few  questions  as 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     93 

to  the  character  of  the  knowledge  which  is  thought 
to  be  obtained  within  those  limits.  I  shall  not  en- 
deavour to  prove  that  a  scheme  of  merely  positive 
beliefs,  admirable,  no  doubt,  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  yet 
intellectually  insufficient  unless  it  be  supplemented 
by  a  metaphysical  or  theological  appendix.  But  I 
shall  examine  the  foundations  of  the  scheme  itself ; 
and  though  such  criticisms  on  it  as  I  shall  be  able  to 
offer  can  never  be  a  substitute  for  the  real  work  of 
philosophic  construction,  they  would  seem  to  be  its 
fitting  preliminary,  and  a  preliminary  which  the 
succeeding  chapters  may  show  to  be  not  without  a 
profit  of  its  own. 

One  great  metaphysician  has  described  the  system 
of  another  as  '  shot  out  of  a  pistol,'  meaning  thereby 
that  it  was  presented  for  acceptance  without  intro- 
ductory proof.  The  criticism  is  true  not  only  of 
the  particular  theory  of  the  Absolute  about  which 
it  was  first  used,  but  about  every  system,  or  almost 
every  system,  of  belief  which  has  ever  passed  current 
among  mankind.  Some  subtle  analogy  with  accepted 
doctrines,  some  general  harmony  with  existing  senti- 
ments and  modes  of  thought,  has  not  uncommonly 
been  deemed  sufficient  to  justify  the  most  audacious 
conjectures  ;  and  the  history  of  speculation  is  littered 
with  theories  whose  authors  seem  never  to  have 
suffered  under  any  overmastering  need  to  prove  the 
opinions  which  they  advanced.  No  such  over- 
mastering need  has,  at  least,  been  felt  in  the  case  of 
'positive   knowledge,'    and    the    very   circumstance 


94    1HE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

that,  alike  in  its  methods  and  in  its  results,  all  men 
are  practically  agreed  to  accept  it  without  demur 
has  blinded  them  to  the  fact  that  it,  too,  has  been 
4  shot  out  of  a  pistol,"  and  that,  like  some  more 
questionable  beliefs,  it  is  still  waiting  for  a  rational 
justification. 

1  [For  our  too  easy  acquiescence  in  this  state  of 
things  I  do  not  think  science  is  itself  to  blame.  It 
is  no  part  of  its  duty  to  deal  with  first  principles. 
Its  business  is  to  provide  us  with  a  theory  of 
Nature  ;  and  it  should  not  be  required,  in  addition, 
to  provide  us  with  a  theory  of  itself.  This  is  a  task 
which  properly  devolves  upon  the  masters  of  specu- 
lation ;  though  it  is  one  which,  for  various  reasons, 
they  have  not  as  yet  satisfactorily  accomplished. 
I  doubt,  indeed,  whether  any  metaphysical  philo- 
sopher before  Kant  can  be  said  to  have  made  con- 
tributions to  this  subject  which  at  the  present  day 
need  be  taken  into  serious  account ;  and,  as  I  shall 
endeavour  to  indicate  in  the  next  chapter,  Kant's 
doctrines,  even  as  modified  by  his  successors,  do 
not,  so  it  seems  to  me,  provide  a  sound  basis  for  an 
'  epistemology  of  Nature.' 

But  if  in  this  connection  we  owe  little  to  the 
metaphysical  philosophers,  we  owe  still  less  to  those 
in  whom  we  had  a  better  right  to  trust,  namely  the 
empirical  ones.     If  the  former  have  to  some  extent 

1  The  remarks  on  the  history  of  philosophy  which  occupy  the 
remainder  of  this  section  are  not  essential  to  the  argument,  and  may 
be  omitted  by  readers  uninterested  in  that  subject.  The  strictly 
necessary  discussion  is  resumed  on  p.  ioo. 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     95 

neglected  the  theory  of  science  for  theories  of  the 
Absolute,  the  latter  have  always  shown  an  inclination 
to  sacrifice  the  theory  of  knowledge  itself  to  theories 
as  to  the  genesis  or  growth  of  knowledge.  They 
have  contented  themselves  with  investigating  the 
primitive  elements  from  which  have  been  developed 
in  the  race  and  in  the  individual  the  completed 
consciousness  of  ourselves  and  of  the  world  in  which 
we  live.  They  have,  therefore,  dealt  with  the  origins 
of  what  we  believe  rather  than  with  its  justification. 
They  have  substituted  psychology  for  philosophy ; 
they  have  presented  us,  in  short,  with  studies  in  a 
particular  branch  or  department  of  science,  rather 
than  with  an  examination  into  the  grounds  of  science 
in  general.  And  when  perforce  they  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  some  of  the  problems  connected 
with  the  philosophy  of  science  which  most  loudly 
clamour  for  solution,  there  is  something  half-pathetic 
and  half-humorous  in  their  methods  of  cutting  a  knot 
which  they  are  quite  unable  to  untie.  Can  anything, 
for  example,  be  more  naive  than  the  undisturbed 
serenity  with  which  Locke,  towards  the  end  of  his 
great  work,  assures  his  readers  that  he  '  suspects 
that  natural  philosophy  is  not  capable  of  being  made 
a  science '  ;  or,  as  I  should  prefer  to  state  it,  that 
natural  science  is  not  capable  of  being  made  a 
philosophy  ?  Or  can  anything  be  more  characteristic 
than  the  moral  which  he  draws  from  this  rather 
surprising  admission,  namely,  that  as  we  are  so  little 
fitted  to  frame  theories  about  this  present  world,  we 


96     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

had  better  devote  our  energies  to  preparing  for  the 
next  ?  This  remarkable  display  of  philosophic 
resignation  in  the  father  of  modern  empiricism  has 
been  imitated,  with  differences,  by  a  long  line  of  dis- 
tinguished successors.  Hume,  for  example,  though 
naturally  enough  he  declined  to  draw  Locke's 
edifying  conclusion,  did  more  than  anyone  else  to 
establish  Locke's  despairing  premise ;  and  his 
inferences  from  it  are  at  least  equally  singular. 
Having  reduced  our  belief  in  the  fundamental 
principles  of  scientific  interpretation  to  expectations  - 
born  of  habit ;  having  reduced  the  world  which  is 
to  be  interpreted  to  an  unrelated  series  of  impres — 
sions  and  ideas  ;  having  by  this  double  process 
made  experience  impossible  and  turned  science  into 
foolishness,  he  quietly  informs  us,  as  the  issue  of 
the  whole  matter,  that  outside  experience  and  science 
knowledge  is  impossible,  and  that  all  except 
'  mathematical  demonstration '  and  '  experimental 
reasoning '  on  '  matters  of  fact '  is  sophistry  and 
illusion  ! 

I  think  too  well  of  Hume's  speculative  genius 
and  too  ill  of  his  speculative  sincerity  to  doubt  that 
in  making  this  statement  he  spoke,  not  as  a 
philosopher,  but  as  a  man  of  the  world,  making 
formal  obeisance  to  the  powers  that  be.  But  what 
he  said  half  ironically,  his  followers  have  said  with 
an  unshaken  seriousness.  Nothing  in  the  history  of 
speculation  is  more  astonishing,  nothing — if  I  am  to 
speak  my  whole  mind — is  more  absurd  than  the  way 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     97 

in  which  Hume's  philosophic  progeny — a  most  dis- 
tinguished race — have,  in  spite  of  all  their  differences, 
yet  been  able  to  agree,  both  that  experience  is  essen- 
tially as  Hume  described  it,  and  that  from  such  an 
experience  can  be  rationally  extracted  anything  even 
in  the  remotest  degree  resembling  the  existing  system 
of  the  natural  sciences.  Like  Locke,  these  gentle- 
men, or  some  of  them,  have,  indeed,  been  assailed 
by  momentary  misgivings.  It  seems  occasionally  to 
have  occurred  to  them  that  if  their  theory  of  know- 
ledge were  adequate,  'experimental  reasoning,'  as 
Hume  called  it,  was  in  a  very  parlous  state  ;  and 
that,  on  the  merits,  nothing  less  deserved  to  be  held 
with  a  positive  conviction  than  what  some  of  them 
are  wont  to  describe  as  '  positive  '  knowledge.  But 
they  have  soon  thrust  away  such  unwelcome 
thoughts.  The  self-satisfied  dogmatism  which  is  so 
convenient,  and,  indeed,  so  necessary  a  habit  in  the 
daily  routine  of  life,  has  resumed  its  sway.  They 
have  forgotten  that  they  were  philosophers,  and 
with  true  practical  instincts  have  reserved  their 
1  obstinate  questionings  '  exclusively  for  the  benefit 
of  opinions  from  which  they  were  already  predis- 
posed to  differ. 

Whether  these  historic  reasons  fully  account  for 
the  comparative  neglect  of  a  philosophy  of  science 
I  will  not  venture  to  pronounce.  But  that  the 
neglect  has  been  real  I  cannot  doubt.  Admirable 
generalisations  of  the  actual  methods  of  scientific 
research,  usually  under  some  such   name  as  '  Induc- 

H 


98    THE  PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

tive  Logic,'  we  have  no  doubt  had  in  abundance. 
But  a  full  and  systematic  attempt,  first  to  enumerate, 
and  then  to  justify,  the  presuppositions  on  which  all 
science  finally  rests,  has,  it  seems  to  me,  still  to  be 
made,  and  must  form  no  insignificant  or  secondary 
portion  of  the  task  which  philosophy  has  yet  to 
perform.  To  some,  perhaps  to  most,  it  may,  indeed, 
appear  as  if  such  a  task  were  one  of  perverse 
futility  ;  not  more  useful  and  much  less  dignified  than 
metaphysical  investigations  into  the  nature  of  the 
Absolute.  However  profitless  in  the  opinion  of  the 
objector  these  may  be,  at  least  it  seems  better  to 
strain  after  the  transcendent  than  to  demonstrate 
the  obvious.  And  science,  it  may  well  be  thought, 
is  quite  sure  enough  of  its  ground  to  be  justified  in 
politely  bowing  out  those  who  thus  officiously  tender 
it  a  perfectly  superfluous  assistance. 

This  is  a  contention  on  the  merits  of  which  it 
will  only  be  possible  to  pronounce  after  the  critical 
examination  into  the  presuppositions  of  science 
which  I  desiderate  has  been  thoroughly  carried  out. 
It  may  then  appear  that  nothing  stands  more  in  need 
of  demonstration  than  the  obvious  ;  that  at  the  very 
root  of  our  scientific  system  of  belief  lie  problems 
of  which  no  satisfactory  solution  has  hitherto  been 
devised  ;  and  that,  so  far  from  its  being  possible 
to  ignore  the  difficulties  which  these  involve,  no 
general  theory  of  knowledge  has  the  least  chance  of 
being  successful  which  does  not  explicitly  include 
within  the  circuit  of  its  criticism,  not  only  the  beliefs 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     99 

which  seem  to  us  to  be  dubious,  but  those  also 
which  we  hold  with  the  most  perfect  practical 
assurance. 

So  much,  at  least,  I  have  endeavoured  to  esta- 
blish in  another  work  to  which  reference  has  been 
already  made.1  And  to  this  I  must  venture  to 
refer  those  readers  who  either  wish  to  see  this 
position  elaborately  developed,  or  who  are  of 
opinion  that  I  have  in  the  preceding  remarks 
treated  the  philosophy  of  the  empirical  school  with 
too  scant  a  measure  of  respect.  The  very  technical 
discussion,  however,  which  it  contains  could  not,  I 
think,  be  made  interesting,  or  perhaps  intelligible, 
to  the  majority  of  those  for  whom  this  book  is 
intended,  and,  even  were  it  otherwise,  they  could  not 
appropriately  be  introduced  into  the  body  of  these 
Notes.  Yet,  though  this  is  impossible,  it  ought 
not,  I  think,  to  be  quite  impossible  to  convey  some 
general  notion  of  the  sort  of  difficulty  with  which 
any  empirical  theory  of  science  would  seem  to  be 
beset,  and  this  without  requiring  on  the  part  of  the 
reader  any  special  knowledge  of  philosophic  termin- 
ology, or,  indeed,  any  knowledge  at  all,  except  that 
of  some  few  very  general  scientific  doctrines.  If  I 
could  succeed,  however  imperfectly,  in  such  a  task, 
it  might  be  of  some  slight  service  even  to  the  reader 
conversant  with  empirical  theories  in  all  their  various 
forms.  For  though  he  will,  of  course,  recognise  in 
what  follows  the  familiar  faces  of  many  old  contro- 

1  Cf.  Prefatory  Note. 

H  ?. 


too     THE    PHILOSOPHIC    BASIS    OF   NATURALISM 

versies,  the  circumstance  that  they  are  here  ap- 
proached, not  from  the  accustomed  side  of  the  psy- 
chology of  perception,  but  from  that  of  physics  and 
physiology,  may  perhaps  give  them  a  freshness 
they  would  not  otherwise  possess.] 


In  order  to  fix  our  ideas  let  us  recall,  in  however 
rough  and  incomplete  a  form,  the  broad  outlines  of 
scientific  doctrine  as  it  at  present  exists,  and  as  it 
has  been  developed  from  that  unorganised  know- 
ledge of  a  world  of  objects — animals,  mountains,  men, 
planets,  trees,  water,  fire,  and  so  forth — which  in  some 
degree  or  other  all  mankind  possess.  These  objects 
science  conceives  as  ordered  and  mutually  related  in 
one  unlimited  space  and  one  unlimited  time  ;  all  in 
their  true  reality  independent  of  the  presence  or 
absence  of  any  observer,  all  governed  in  their 
behaviour  by  rigid  and  unvarying  laws.  These  are 
its  material ;  these  it  is  its  business  to  describe. 
Their  appearance,  their  inner  constitution,  their 
environment,  the  process  of  their  development,  the 
modes  in  which  they  act  and  are  acted  upon — such 
and  such-like  subjects  of  inquiry  constitute  the 
problems  which  science  has  set  itself  to  investigate. 

The  result  of  its  investigations  is  now  embodied 
in  a  general,  if  provisional,  view  of  the  (phenomenal) 
universe  which  is  practically  accepted  without  ques- 
tion by  all  instructed  persons.  According  to  this 
view,  the  world  consists  essentially  of  innumerable 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF  NATURALISM     iot 

small  particles  of  definite  and  unchanging  mass, 
endowed  with  a  variety  of  mechanical,  chemical,  and 
other  qualities,  and  forming  by  their  mutual  associa- 
tion the  various  bodies  which  we  can  handle  and 
see,  and  many  others  which  we  can  neither  handle 
nor  see.  These  ponderable  particles  have  their 
being  in  a  diffused  and  all-penetrating  medium,  or 
ether,  of  which  we  know  little,  except  that  it 
possesses,  or  behaves  as  if  it  possessed,  certain 
mechanical  properties  of  a  very  remarkable  charac- 
ter ;  while  the  whole  of  this  material 1  system, 
ponderable  particles  and  ether  alike,  is  animated  (if 
the  phrase  may  be  permitted  me)  by  a  quantity  of 
energy  which,  though  it  varies  in  the  manner  and 
place  of  its  manifestation,  yet  never  varies  in  its 
total  amount.  It  only  remains  to  add,  as  a  fact  of 
considerable  importance  to  ourselves,  though  of 
little  apparent  importance  to  the  universe  at  large, 
that  a  few  of  the  material  particles  above  alluded  to 
are  arranged  into  living  organisms,  and  that  among 
these  organisms  are  a  small  minority  which  have 
the  remarkable  power  of  extracting  from  the  changes 
which  take  place  in  certain  of  their  tissues  psychical 
phenomena   of  various  kinds ;    some  of  which    are 

1  This  ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  word  'matter'  is  apt  to  be  a 
nuisance  in  these  discussions.  The  term  is  sometimes,  and  quite 
properly,  used  only  of  ponderable  matter,  and  in  opposition  to  ether. 
But  when  we  talk  of  the  '  material  universe,'  it  is  absurd  to  exclude 
from  our  meaning  the  ether,  which  is  the  most  important  part  of  that 
universe,  or  to  deny  materiality  to  a  substance  which  behaves  as  if  it 
were  an  elastic  solid.  The  context  will,  I  hope,  always  show  in  which 
sense  the  word  is  used. 


102     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF  NATURALISM 

the  reflection,  or  partial  reproduction  in  perception 
and  in  thought,  of  fragments  and  aspects  of  that 
material  world  to  which  they  owe  their  being. 

Secure  in  this  general  view  of  things,  the  great 
co-operative  work  of  scientific  investigation  moves 
swiftly  on.  The  experimental  psychologist,  if  we 
are  to  begin  at  that  end  of  the  scale,  measures 
'time  reactions,'  and  other  equally  important  matters 
illustrating  the  relations  of  mind  and  body ;  the 
physiologist  endeavours  to  surprise  the  secrets  of 
the  living  organ  ;  the  biologist  traces  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  and  the  mutations  of  the 
species  ;  the  chemist  searches  out  the  laws  which 
govern  the  combination  and  reactions  of  atoms  and 
molecules  ;  the  astronomer  investigates  the  move- 
ments and  the  life-histories  of  suns  and  planets ; 
while  the  physicist  explores  the  inmost  mysteries  of 
matter  and  energy,  not  unprepared  to  discover 
behind  the  invisible  particles  and  the  insensible 
movements  with  which  he  familiarly  deals,  explana- 
tions of  the  material  universe  yet  more  remote  from 
the  unsophisticated  perceptions  of  ordinary  man- 
kind. 

The  philosophic  reader  is  of  course  aware  that 
many  of  the  terms  which  I  have  used,  and  been 
obliged  to  use,  in  this  outline  of  the  scientific  view 
of  the  universe  may  be,  and  have  been,  subjected 
to  philosophic  analysis,  and  often  with  very  curious 
results.  Space,  time,  matter,  energy,  cause,  quality, 
idea,  perception — all  these,  to  mention  no  others,  are 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     io3 

expressions  without  the  aid  of  which  no  account 
could  be  given  of  the  circle  of  the  sciences  ;  though 
every  one  of  them  suggests  a  multitude  of  specula- 
tive problems,  of  which  speculation  has  not  as  yet 
succeeded  in  giving  us  the  final  and  decisive  solution. 
These  problems,  for  the  most  part,  however,  I  put  on 
one  side.  I  take  these  terms  as  I  find  them  ;  in  the 
sense,  that  is,  which  everybody  attributes  to  them  until 
he  begins  to  puzzle  himself  with  too  curious  inquiries 
into  their  precise  meaning.  No  such  embarrassing 
investigations  do  I  here  wish  to  impose  upon  my 
reader.  It  shall  for  the  present  be  agreed  between  us 
that  the  body  of  doctrine  summarised  above  is,  so  far 
as  it  goes,  clear  and  intelligible  ;  and  all  I  shall  now 
require  of  him  is  to  look  at  it  from  a  new  point  of 
view,  to  approach  it,  as  it  were,  from  a  different  side, 
to  study  it  with  a  new  intention.  \ Instead,  then,  of 
asking  what  are  the  beliefs  which  science  inculcates, 
let  us  ask  why,  in  the  last  resort,  we  hold  them  to  be 
trueT\  Instead  of  inquiring  how  a  thing  happens,  or 
what  it  is,(fet  us  inquire  how  we  know  that  it  does 
thus  happen,  and|SWhy  we  believe  that  so  in  truth  it 
isTT/Jnstead  of  enumerating  causes,  let  us  set  our- 
selves to  investigate  reasons. 

in 

Now  it  is  at  once  evident  that  the  very  same 
general  body  of  doctrines,  the  very  same  set  of 
propositions  about  the  '  natural '  world,  arranged 
according  to  the  principles  suggested  by  these  ques- 


p* 


ro4    THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

tions,  would  fall  into  a  wholly  different  order  from 
that  which  would  be  observed  if  its  distribution 
were  governed  merely  by  considerations  based  upon 
the  convenience  of  scientific  exposition.  Indeed, 
we  may  say  that  there  are  at  least  four  quite  different 
orders,  theoretically  distinguishable,  though  usually 
mixed  up  in  practice,  in  which  scientific  truth  may 
be  expounded.  There  is,  first,  the  order  of  discovery. 
This  is  governed  by  no  rational  principle,  but 
depends  on  historic  causes,  on  the  accidents  of  indi- 
vidual genius  and  the  romantic  chances  of  experi- 
ment and  observation.  There  is,  secondly,  the 
rhetorical  order,  useful  enough  in  its  proper  place,  in 
which,  for  example,  we  proceed  from  the  simple  to 
the  difficult,  or  from  the  striking  to  the  important, 
according  to  the  needs  of  the  hearer.  There  is, 
thirdly,  the  scientific  order,  in  which,  could  we  only 
bring  it  to  perfection,  we  should  proceed  from  the 
abstract  to  the  concrete,  and  from  the  general  law 
to  the  particular  instance,  until  the  whole  world  of 
phenomena  was  gradually  presented  to  our  gaze  as 
a  closely  woven  tissue  of  causes  and  effects,  infinite 
in  its  complexity,  incessant  in  its  changes,  yet  at 
each  moment  proclaiming  to  those  who  can  hear 
and  understand  the  certain  prophecy  of  its  future 
and  the  authentic  record  of  its  past.  Lastly,  there 
is  what,  according  to  the  terminology  here  em- 
ployed, must  be  called  the  philosophic  order,  in  which 
the  various  scientific  propositions  or  dogmas  are,  or 
rather  should  be,  arranged  as  a  series  of  premises 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     105 

and  conclusions,  starting  from  those  which  are  axio- 
matic, i.e.  for  which  proof  can  be  neither  given 
nor  required,  and  moving  on  through  a  continuous 
series  of  binding  inferences,  until  the  whole  of  know- 
ledge is  caught  up  and  ordered  in  the  meshes  of  this 
all-inclusive  dialectical  network. 

In  its  perfected  shape  it  is  evident  that  the  philo- 
sophic series,  though  it  reaches  out  to  the  farthest 
confines  of  the  known,  must  for  each  man  trace 
its  origin  to  something  which  he  can  regard  as  axio- 
matic and  self-evident  truth.  There  is  no  theoretical 
escape  for  any  of  us  from  the  ultimate  '  I.'  /What  - 
'  I  '  believe  as  conclusive  must  be  drawn,  by  some 
process  which  '  I '  accept  as  cogeftQ  from  something 
which  '  I  '  am  obliged  to  regard  as  intrinsically  self- 
sufficient,  beyond  the  reach  of  criticism  or  the  need 
for  proof.  The  philosophic  order  and  the  scientific 
order  of  statement,  therefore,  cannot  fail  to  be 
wholly  different.  While  the  scientific  order  may 
start  with  the  dogmatic  enunciation  of  some  great 
generalisation  valid  through  the  whole  unmeasured 
range  of  the  material  universe,  the  philosophic  order 
is  perforce  compelled  to  find  its  point  of  departure  in 
the  humble  personality  of  the  inquirer.  His  grounds 
of  belief,  not  the  things  believed  in,  are  the  subject- 
matter  of  investigation.  His  reason,  or,  if  you  like 
to  have  it  so,  his  share  of  the  Universal  Reason,  but 
in  any  case  something  which  is  his,  must  sit  in  judg- 
ment, and  must  try  the  cause.  The  rights  of  this 
tribunal  are    inalienable,    its  authority  incapable   of 


xo6     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

delegation  ;  nor  is  there  any  superior  court  by  which 
the  verdict  it  pronounces  can  be  reversed. 

If  now  the  question  were  asked,  'On  what  sort 
of  premises  rests  ultimately  the  scientific  theory 
of  the  world  ?  '  science  and  empirical  philosophy, 
though  they  might  not  agree  on  the  meaning  of 
terms,  would  agree  in  answering,  '  On  premises 
supplied  by  experience.'  It  is  experience  which  has 
given  us  our  first  real  knowledge  of  Nature  and  her 
laws.  It  is  experience,  in  the  shape  of  observa- 
tion and  experiment,  which  has  given  us  the  raw 
material  out  of  which  hypothesis  and  inference  have 
slowly  elaborated  that  richer  conception  of  the 
material  world  which  constitutes  perhaps  the  chief, 
and  certainly  the  most  characteristic,  glory  of  the 
modern  mind. 

What,  then,  is  this  experience  ?  or,  rather,  let  us 
ask  (so  as  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  trenching  on 
Kantian  ground)  what  are  these  experiences  ?  These 
experiences,  the  experiences  on  which  are  alike 
founded  the  practice  of  the  savage  and  the  theories 
of  the  man  of  science,  are  for  the  most  part  observa- 
tions of  material  things  or  objects,  and  of  their  be- 
haviour in  the  presence  of  or  in  relation  to  each 
other.  These,  on  the  empirical  theory  of  knowledge, 
supply  the  direct  information,  the  immediate  data 
from  which  all  our  wider  knowledge  ultimately 
draws  its  sanction.  Behind  these  it  is  impossible 
to  go ;  impossible,  but  also  unnecessary.  For  as 
the   '  evidence   of  the   senses '   does  not  derive  its 


& 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     107 

authority  from  any  higher  source,  so  it  is  useless 
to  dispute  its  full  and  indefeasible  title  to  command 
our  assent.  According  to  this  view,  which  is 
thoroughly  in  accordance  with  common-sense, 
science  rests  in  the  main  upon  the  immediate  judg- 
ments we  form  about  natural  objects  in  the  act  of 
seeing,  hearing,  and  handling  them?)  This  is  the 
solid,  if  somewhat  narrow,  platform  which  provides 
us  with  a  foothold  whence  we  may  reach  upward 
into  regions  where  the  '  senses  '  convey  to  us  no 
direct  knowledge,  where  we  have  to  do  with  laws 
remote  from  our  personal  observation,  and  with 
objects  which  can  neither  be  seen,  heard,  nor  handled. 


IV 

But  although  such  a  theory  seems  simple  and 
straightforward  enough,  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
habitual  sentiments  and  the  universal  practice  of 
mankind,  it  would  evidently  be  rash  to  rest  satisfied 
with  it  as  a  philosophy  of  science  until  we  had  at 
least  heard  what  science  itself  has  to  say  upon  the 
subject.  What,  then,  is  the  account  which  science 
gives  of  these  '  immediate  judgments  of  the  senses '  ? 
Has  it  anything  to  tell  us  about  their  nature,  or  the 
mode  of  their  operation  ?  Without  doubt  it  has  ; 
and  its  teaching  provides  a  curious,  and  at  first 
sight  an  even  startling,  commentary  on  the  common- 
sense  version  of  that  philosophy  of  experience 
whose  general  character  has  just  been  indicated 
above. 


ioS     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

For  whereas  common-sense  tells  us  that  our  ex- 
perience of  objects  provides  us  with  a  knowledge  of 
their  nature  which,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  immediate 
and  direct,  science  informs  us  that  each  particular 
experience  is  itself  but  the  final  link  in  a  long  chain 
of  causes  and  effects,  whose  beginning  is  lost  amid 
the  complexities  of  the  material  world,  and  whose 
ending  is  a  change  of  some  sort  in  the  '  mind '  of 
the  percipient.  It  informs  us,  further,  that  among 
these  innumerable  causes,  the  thing  '  immediately 
experienced '  is  but  one  ;  and  is,  moreover,  one 
separated  from  the  '  immediate  experience  '  which  it 
modestly  assists  in  producing  by  a  very  large  number 
of  intermediate  causes  which  are  never  experienced 
at  all. 

Take,  for  example,  an  ordinary  case  of  vision. 
What  are  the  causes  which  ultimately  produce  the 
apparently  immediate  experience  of  (for  example)  a 
green  tree  standing  in  the  next  field  ?  There  are,  first 
(to  go  no  further  back),  the  vibrations  among  the 
particles  of  the  source  of  light,  say  the  sun.  Conse- 
quent on  these  are  the  ethereal  undulations  between 
the  sun  and  the  object  seen,  namely,  the  green  tree. 
Then  follows  the  absorption  of  most  of  these  undu- 
lations by  the  object;  the  reflection  of  the  '  green' 
residue  ;  the  incidence  of  a  small  fraction  of  these  on 
the  lens  of  the  eye  ;  their  arrangement  on  the  retina  ; 
the  stimulation  of  the  optic  nerve  ;  and,  finally,  the 
molecular  change  in  a  certain  tract  of  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  by  which,  in  some  way  or  other  wholly 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 


109 


unknown,  through  predispositions  in  part  acquired  by 
the  individual,  but  chiefly  inherited  through  countless 
generations  of  ancestors,  is  produced  the  complex 
mental  fact  which  we  describe  by  saying  that  '  we 
have  an  immediate  experience  of  a  tree  about  fifty 
yards  off.' 

Now  the  experience,  the  causes  and  conditions 
of  which  I  have  thus  rudely  outlined,  is  typical  of 
all  the  experiences,  without  exception,  on  which  is 
based  our  knowledge  of  the  material  universe. 
Some  of  these  experiences,  no  doubt,  are  incorrect. 
The  'evidence  of  the  senses,'  as  the  phrase  goes, 
proves  now  and  then  to  be  fallacious.  But  it  is 
proved  to  be  fallacious  by  other  evidence  of  precisely 
the  same  kind  ;  and  if  we  take  the  trouble  to  trace 
back  far  enough  our  reasons  for  believing  any  scien- 
tific truth  whatever,  they  always  end  in  some  '  im- 
mediate experience '  or  experiences  of  the  type  de- 
scribed above. 

But  the  comparison  thus  inevitably  suggested 
between  '  immediate  experiences '  considered  as  the 
ultimate  basis  of  all  scientific  belief,  and  immediate 
experience  considered  as  an  insignificant  and,  so  to 
speak,  casual  product  of  natural  laws,  suggests  some 
curious  reflections.  I  do  not  allude  to  the  difficulty 
of  understanding  how  a  mental  effect  can  be  pro- 
duced by  a  physical  cause — how  matter  can  act  on 
mind.  The  problem  I  wish  to  dwell  on  is  of  quite 
a  different  kind.  It  is  concerned,  not  with  the  nature 
of  the  laws  by  which  the   world   is   governed,   but 


no    THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

with  their  proof.  It  arises,  not  out  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  feeling  our  way  slowly  along  the  causal 
chain  from  physical  antecedents  to  mental  conse- 
quents, but  from  the  difficulty  of  harmonising  this 
movement  with  the  opposite  one,  whereby  we  jump 
by  some  instantaneous  effort  of  inferential  activity 
from  these  mental  consequents  to  an  immediate 
conviction  as  to  the  reality  and  character  of  some  of 
their  remoter  physical  antecedents.  I  am  '  expe- 
riencing' (to  revert  to  our  illustration)  the  tree  in 
the  next  field.  While  looking  at  it  I  begin  to 
reflect  upon  the  double  process  I  have  just  described. 
I  remember  the  long-drawn  series  of  causes, 
physical  and  physiological,  by  which  my  percep- 
tion of  the  object  has  been  produced.  I  realise 
that  each  one  of  these  causes  might  have  been 
replaced  by  some  other  cause  without  altering  the 
character  of  the  consequent  perception  ;  and  that  if 
it  had  been  so  replaced,  my  judgment  about  the 
object,  though  it  would  have  been  as  confident  and 
as  immediate  as  at  present,  would  have  been  wrong. 
Anything,  for  instance,  which  would  distribute 
similar  green  rays  on  the  retina  of  my  eyes  in  the 
same  pattern  as  that  produced  by  the  tree,  or  any- 
thing which  would  produce  a  like  irritation  of  the 
optic  nerve  or  a  like  modification  of  the  cerebral 
tissues,  would  give  me  an  experience  in  itself  quite 
indistinguishable  from  my  experience  of  the  tree, 
although  it  had  the  unfortunate  peculiarity  of  being 
wholly    incorrect.       The   same   message    would    be 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     in 

delivered,  in  the  same  terms  and  on  the  same  au- 
thority, but  it  would  be  false.  And  though  we  are 
quite  familiar  with  the  fact  that  illusions  are  possible 
and  that  mistakes  will  occur  in  the  simplest  observa- 
tion, yet  we  can  hardly  avoid  being  struck  by  the 
incongruity  of  a  scheme  of  belief  whose  premises  are 
wholly  derived  from  witnesses  admittedly  untrust- 
worthy, yet  which  is  unable  to  supply  any  criterion, 
other  than  the  evidence  of  these  witnesses  them- 
selves, by  which  the  character  of  their  evidence  can 
in  any  given  case  be  determined. 

The  fact  that  even  the  most  immediate  experi- 
ences carry  with  them  no  inherent  guarantee  of  their 
veracity  is,  however,  by  far  the  smallest  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  emerge  from  a  comparison  of  the  causal 
movement  from  object  to  perception,  with  the  cogni- 
tive leap  through  perception  to  object.  For  a  very 
slight  consideration  of  the  teaching  of  science  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  first  is  sufficient  to  prove,  not  merely 
the  possible,  but  the  habitual  inaccuracy  of  the  second. 
In  other  words,  we  need  only  to  consider  carefully 
our  perceptions  regarded  as  psychological  results,  in 
order  to  see  that,  regarded  as  sources  of  information, 
they  are  not  merely  occasionally  inaccurate,  but 
habitually  mendacious.  We  are  dealing,  recollect, 
with  a  theory  of  science  according  to  which  the 
ultimate  stress  of  scientific  proof  is  thrown  wholly 
upon  our  immediate  experience  of  objects.  But 
nine-tenths  of  our  immediate  experiences  of  objects 
are  visual ;  and  all  visual  experiences,  without  excep- 

UNIVER:- 


ii2     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

tion,  are,  according  to  science,  erroneous.  As  every- 
body knows,  colour  is  not  a  property  of  the  thing 
seen  :  it  is  a  sensation  produced  in  us  by  that  thing. 
The  thing  itself  consists  of  uncoloured  particles,  which 
become  visible  solely  in  consequence  of  their  power 
of  either  producing  or  reflecting  ethereal  undulations. 
The  degrees  of  brightness  and  the  qualities  of  colour 
perceived  in  the  thing,  and  in  virtue  of  which  alone 
any  visual  perception  of  the  thing  is  possible,  are, 
therefore,  according  to  optics,  no  part  of  its  reality, 
but  are  mere  feelings  produced  in  the  mind  of  the 
percipient  by  the  complex  movements  of  material 
molecules,  possessing  mass  and  extension,  but  to 
which  it  is  not  only  incorrect  but  unmeaning  to 
attribute  either  brightness  or  colour. 

From  the  side  of  science  these  are  truisms. 
From  the  side  of  a  theory  or  philosophy  of  science, 
however,  they  are  paradoxes.  It  was  sufficiently 
embarrassing  to  discover  that  the  message  conveyed 
to  us  by  sensible  experiences  which  the  observer 
treats  as  so  direct  and  so  certain  are,  when  con- 
sidered in  transit,  at  one  moment  nothing  but 
vibrations  of  imperceptible  particles,  at  another 
nothing  but  periodic  changes  in  an  unimaginable 
ether,  at  a  third  nothing  but  unknown,  and  perhaps 
unknowable,  modifications  of  nervous  tissue  ;  and 
that  none  of  these  various  messengers  carry  with 
them  any  warrant  that  the  judgment  in  which  they 
finally  issue  will  prove  to  be  true.  But  what  are  we 
to  say  about  these  same  experiences  when  we  dis- 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     113 

cover,  not  only  that  they  may  be  wholly  false,  but 
that  they  are  never  wholly  true  ?  What  sort  of  a 
system  is  that  which  makes  haste  to  discredit  its 
own  premises?  In  what  entanglements  of  contra- 
diction do  we  not  find  ourselves  involved  by  the 
attempt  to  rest  science  upon  observations  which 
science  itself  asserts  to  be  erroneous  ?  By  what 
possible  title  do  we  proclaim  the  same  immediate 
experience  to  be  right  when  it  testifies  to  the  inde- 
pendent reality  of  something  solid  and  extended,  and 
to  be  wrong  when  it  testifies  to  the  independent 
reality  of  something  illuminated  and  coloured  ? 


There  is,  of  course,  an  answer  to  all  this,  simple 
enough  if  only  it  be  true.  The  whole  theory,  it  may 
be  said,  on  which  we  have  been  proceeding  is  un- 
tenable, the  undigested  product  of  crude  common- 
sense.  The  bugbear  which  frightens  us  is  of  our 
own  creation.  We  have  no  immediate  expe- 
rience of  independent  things  such  as  has  been 
gratuitously  supposed.  What  science  tells  us  of  the 
colour  element  in  our  visual  perceptions,  namely, 
that  it  is  merely  a  feeling  or  sensation,  is  true  of 
every  element  in  every  perception.  We  are  directly 
cognisant  of  nothing  but  mental  states  :  all  else  is 
a  matter  of  inference ;  a  hypothetical  machinery 
devised  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  account  for  the 
existence    of  the  only  realities  of  which  we    have 

1 


ii4    THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

first-hand    knowledge — namely,    the   mental   states 
themselves. 

Now  this  theory  does  at  first  sight  undoubtedly 
appear  to  harmonise  with  the  general  teaching  of 
science  on  the  subject  of  mental  physiology.  This 
teaching,  as  ordinarily  expounded,  assumes  through- 
out a  material  world  of  objects  and  a  psychical  world 
of  feelings  and  ideas.  The  latter  is  in  all  cases  the 
product  of  the  former.  In  some  cases  it  may  be  a 
copy  or  partial  reflection  of  the  former.  In  no  case  is  it 
identified  with  the  former.  When,  therefore,  I  am  in 
the  act  of  experiencing  a  tree  in  the  next  field,  what  on 
this  theory  I  am  really  doing  is  inferring  from  the 
fact  of  my  having  certain  feelings  the  existence  of  a 
cause  having  qualities  adequate  to  produce  them. 
It  is  true  that  the  process  of  inference  is  so  rapid  and 
habitual  that  we  are  unconscious  of  performing  it. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  inference  is  quite  differently 
performed  by  the  natural  man  in  his  natural  moments 
and  the  scientific  man  in  his  scientific  moments. 
For,  whereas  the  natural  man  infers  the  existence 
of  a  material  object  which  in  all  respects  resembles 
his  idea  of  it,  the  scientific  man  knows  very  well  that 
the  material  object  only  resembles  his  ideas  of  it  in 
certain  particulars — extension,  solidity,  and  so  forth 
— and  that  in  respect  of  such  attributes  as  colour  and 
illumination  there  is  no  resemblance  at  all.  Never- 
theless, in  all  cases,  whether  there  be  resemblance 
between  them  or  not,  the  material  fact  is  a  conclusion^ 
from  the  mental  fact,  with  which  last  alone  we  cany 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     115 

be  said  to  be,  so  to  speak,  in  any  immediate  empirical 
relation. 

As  this  theory  regarding  the  sources  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  material  world  fits  in  with  the 
habitual  language  of  mental  physiology,  so  also  it 
fits  in  with  the  first  instincts  of  speculative  analysis. 
It  is,  I  suppose,  one  of  the  earliest  discoveries  of 
the  metaphysically  minded  youth  that  he  can,  if  he 
so  wills  it,  change  his  point  of  view,  and  thereby 
suddenly  convert  what  in  ordinary  moments  seem 
the  solid  realities  of  this  material  universe,  into  an 
unending  pageant  of  feelings  and  ideas,  moving  in 
long  procession  across  his  mental  stage,  and  having 
from  the  nature  of  the  case  no  independent  being 
before  they  appear,  nor  retaining  any  after  they 
vanish. 

But  however  plausible  be  this  correction  of 
common-sense,  it  has  its  difficulties.  In  the  first 
place,  it  involves  a  complete  divorce  between  the 
V  practice  of  science  and  its  theory.  It  is  all  very  well 
to  say  that  the  scientific  account  of  mental  physiology 
in  general,  and  of  sense-perception  in  particular, 
requires  us  to  hold  that  what  is  immediately  ex- 
perienced are  mental  facts,  and  that  our  knowledge  of 
physical  facts  is  but  mediate  and  inferential.  Such 
a  conclusion  is  quite  out  of  harmony  with  its  own 
premises,  since  the  propositions  on  which,  as  a  matter 
of  historical  verity,  science  is  ultimately  founded  are 
not  propositions  about  states  of  mind,  but  about 
material    things.     The    observations    on    which  are 


n6     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

built,  for  example,  our  knowledge  of  anatomy  or  our 
knowledge  of  chemistry  were  not,  in  the  opinion  of 
those  who  originally  made  them  or  have  since  con- 
firmed them,  observations  of  their  own  feelings,  but 
of  objects  thought  of  as  wholly  independent  of  the 
observer.  They  may  have  been  mistaken.  Such 
observations  may  be  impossible.  But,  possible  or 
impossible,  they  were  believed  to  have  occurred, 
and  on  that  belief  depends  the  whole  empirical 
evidence  of  science  as  scientific  discoverers  them- 
selves conceive  it. 

The  reader  will,  I  hope,  understand  that  I  am 
not  here  arguing  that  the  theory  of  experience  now 
under  consideration,  the  theory,  that  is,  which  con- 
fines the  field  of  immediate  experience  to  our  own 
states  of  mind,  is  inconsistent  with  science,  or  even 
that  it  supplies  an  inadequate  empirical  basis  for 
science.  On  these  points  I  may  have  a  word  to 
say  presently.  My  present  contention  simply  is, 
that  it  is  not  experience  thus  understood  which 
has  supplied  men  of  science  with  their  knowledge 
of  the  physical  universe.  They  have  never  sus- 
pected that,  while  they  supposed  themselves  to 
be  perceiving  independent  material  objects,  they 
were  in  reality  perceiving  quite  another  set  of 
things,  namely,  feelings  and  sensations  of  a  par- 
ticular kind,  grouped  in  particular  ways,  and  suc- 
ceeding each  other  in  a  particular  order.  Nor,  if 
this  idea  had  ever  occurred  to  them,  would  they  have 
admitted  that  these  two  classes  of  things  could  by 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     117 

any  merely  verbal  manipulation  be  made  the  same. 
So  that  if  this  particular  account  of  the  nature  of 
experience  be  accurate,  the  system  of  thought  repre- 
sented by  science  presents  the  singular  spectacle  of  a 
creed  which  is  believed  in  practice  for  one  set  of 
reasons,  though  in  theory  it  can  only  be  justified  by 
another ;  and  which,  through  some  beneficent  acci- 
dent, turns  out  to  be  true,  though  its  origin  and  each 
subsequent  stage  in  its  gradual  development  are  the 
product  of  error  and  illusion. 

This  is  perplexing  enough.  Yet  an  even  stronger 
statement  would  seem  to  be  justified.  We  must  not 
only  say  that  the  experiences  on  which  science  is 
founded  have  been  invariably  misinterpreted  by  those 
who  underwent  them,  but  that,  if  they  had  not  been 
so  misinterpreted,  science  as  we  know  it  would 
never  have  existed.  We  have  not  merely  stumbled 
on  the  truth  in  spite  of  error  and  illusion,  which  is 
odd,  but  because  of  error  and  illusion,  which  is  even 
odder.  For  if  the  scientific  observers  of  Nature  had 
realised  from  the  beginning  that  all  they  were  observ- 
ing was  their  own  feelings  and  ideas,  as  empirical 
idealism  and  mental  physiology  alike  require  us  to 
hold,  they  surely  would  never  have  taken  the  trouble 
to  invent  a  Nature  {i.e.  an  independently  existing 
system  of  material  things)  for  no  other  purpose  than 
to  provide  a  machinery  by  which  the  occurrence  of 
feelings  and  ideas  might  be  adequately  accounted 
for.  To  go  through  so  much  to  get  so  little,  to 
bewilder  themselves  in  the  ever-increasing  intricacies 
of  this  hypothetical    wheel-work,    to  pile  world  on 


nS     THE    PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

world  and  add  infinity  to  infinity,  and  all  for  no 
more  important  object  than  to  find  an  explanation 
for  a  few  fleeting  impressions,  say  of  colour  or  resist- 
ance, would,  indeed,  have  seemed  to  them  a  most 
superfluous  labour.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  doubt  that 
this  task  has  been  undertaken  and  partially  accom- 
plished only  because  humanity  has  been,  as  for  the 
most  part  it  still  is,  under  the  belief  not  merely 
that  there  exists  a  universe  possessing  the  independ- 
ence which  science  and  common-sense  alike  postulate, 
but  that  it  is  a  universe  immediately,  if  imperfectly, 
revealed  to  us  in  the  deliverances  of  sense-perception. 


VI 

We  can  scarcely  deny,  then,  though  the  paradox 
be  hard  of  digestion,  that,  historically  speaking,  if 
the  theory  we  are  discussing  be  true,  science  owes 
its  being  to  an  erroneous  view  as  to  what  kind  of 
information  it  is  that  our  experiences  directly  convey 
to  us.  But  a  much  more  important  question  than 
the  merely  historical  one  remains  behind,  namely, 
whether,  from  the  kind  of  information  which  our  ex- 
periences do  thus  directly  convey  to  us,  anything  at 
all  resembling  the  scientific  theory  of  Nature  can  be 
reasonably  extracted.  Can  our  revised  conception 
of  the  material  world  really  be  inferred  from  our 
revised  conception  of  the  import  and  limits  of 
experience  ?  Can  we  by  any  possible  treatment  of 
sensations  and  feelings   legitimately  squeeze  out  of 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     119 

them  trustworthy  knowledge  of  the  permanent  and 
independent  material  universe  of  which,  according 
to  science,  sensations  and  feelings  are  but  transient 
and  evanescent  effects  ? 

I  cannot  imagine  the  process  by  which  such  a 
result  may  be  attained,  nor  has  it  been  satisfactorily 
explained  to  us  by  any  apologist  of  the  empirical 
theory  of  knowledge.  We  may,  no  doubt,  argue 
that  sensations  and  feelings,  like  everything  else,  must 
have  a  cause  ;  that  the  hypothesis  of  a  material  world 
suggests  such  a  cause  in  a  form  which  is  agreeable 
to  our  natural  beliefs  ;  and  that  it  is  a  hypothesis  we 
are  justified  in  adopting  when  we  find  that  it  enables 
us  to  anticipate  the  order  and  character  of  that  stream 
of  perceptions  which  it  is  called  into  existence  to  ex- 
plain. But  this  is  a  line  of  argument  which  really 
will  not  bear  examination.  Every  one  of  the  three 
propositions  of  which  it  consists  is,  if  we  are  to  go 
back  to  fundamental  principles,  either  disputable  or 
erroneous.  The  principle  of  causation  cannot  be 
extracted  out  of  a  succession  of  individual  experiences, 
as  is  implied  by  the  first.  The  world  described  by 
science  is  not  congruous  with  our  natural  beliefs,  as 
is  alleged  by  the  second.  Nor  can  we  legitimately 
reason  back  from  effect  to  cause  in  the  manner 
required  by  the  third. 

A  very  brief  comment  will,  I  think,  be  sufficient 
to  make  this  clear,  and  I  proceed  to  offer  it  on  each  of 
the  three  propositions,  taking  them,  for  convenience, 
in  the  reverse  order,  and  beginning,  therefore,  with 


i2o     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

the  third.  This  in  effect  declares  that  as  the  material 
world  described  by  science  would,  if  it  existed, 
produce  sensations  and  impressions  in  the  very- 
manner  in  which  our  experiences  assure  us  that  they 
actually  occur,  we  may  assume  that  such  a  world 
exists.  But  may  we  ?  Even  supposing  that  there 
was  this  complete  correspondence  between  theory 
and  fact,  which  is  far,  unfortunately,  from  being  at 
present  the  case,  are  we  justified  in  making  so  bold 
a  logical  leap  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  ?  I 
doubt  it.  Recollect  that  by  hypothesis  we  are 
strictly  imprisoned,  so  far  as  direct  experiences  are 
concerned,  within  the  circle  of  sensations  or  im- 
pressions. It  is  in  this  self-centred  universe  alone, 
therefore,  that  we  can  collect  the  premises  of  further 
knowledge.  How  can  it  possibly  supply  us  with 
any  principles  of  selection  by  which  to  decide 
between  the  various  kinds  of  cause  that  may,  for 
anything  we  know  to  the  contrary,  have  had  a  hand 
in  its  production  ?  None  of  these  kinds  of  cause  are 
open  to  observation.  All  must,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  be  purely  conjectural.  Because,  therefore, 
we  happen  to  have  thought  of  one  which,  with  a 
little  goodwill,  can  be  forced  into  a  rude  correspon- 
dence with  the  observed  facts,  shall  we,  oblivious  of 
the  million  possible  explanations  which  a  superior 
intelligence  might  be  able  to  devise,  proceed  to 
decorate  our  particular  fancy  with  the  title  of  the 
*■  Real  World '  ?  If  we  do  so,  it  is  not,  as  the  candid 
reader  will  be  prepared  to  admit,  because  such   a 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     121 

conclusion  is  justified  by  such  premises,  but  because 
we  are  predisposed  to  a  conclusion  of  this  kind 
by  those  instinctive  beliefs  which,  in  unreflective 
moments,  the  philosopher  shares  with  the  savage. 
In  such  moments  all  men  conceive  themselves  (by 
hypothesis  erroneously)  as  having  direct  experiences 
of  an  independent  material  universe.  When,  there- 
fore, science,  or  philosophers  on  behalf  of  science, 
proceed  to  infer  such  a  universe  from  impressions 
of  extension,  resistance,  and  so  forth,  they  find  them- 
selves, so  far,  in  an  unnatural  and  quite  illegitimate 
alliance  with  common-sense.  By  procedures  which 
are  different,  and  essentially  inconsistent,  the  two 
parties  have  found  it  possible  to  reach  results  which 
at  first  sight  look  very  much  the  same.  Immediate 
intuitions  wrongly  interpreted  come  to  the  aid  of 
mediate  inferences  illegitimately  constructed  ;  we 
find  ourselves  quite  prepared  to  accept  the  con- 
clusions of  bad  reasoning,  because  they  have  a 
partial  though,  as  I  shall  now  proceed  to  show,  an 
illusory  resemblance  to  the  deliverances  of  uncriti- 
cised  experience. 

This,  it  will  be  observed,  is  the  subject  dealt  with 
in  the  second  of  the  three  propositions  on  which  I 
am  engaged  in  commenting.  It  alleges  that  the 
world  described  by  science  is  congruous  with  our 
natural  beliefs  ;  a  thesis  not  very  important  in  itself, 
which  I  only  dwell  on  now  because  it  affords  a 
convenient  text  from  which  to  preach  the  great 
oddity   of   the  creed  which    science   requires  us  to 


i22     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

adopt  respecting  the  world  in  which  we  live.  This 
creed  is  evidently  in  its  origin  an  amendment  or 
modification  of  the  natural  or  instinctive  view  of 
things,  a  compromise  to  which  we  are  no  doubt 
compelled  by  considerations  of  conclusive  force,  but 
a  compromise,  nevertheless,  which,  if  we  did  not 
know  it  to  be  true,  we  should  certainly  find  it 
difficult  not  to  abandon  as  absurd. 

For,  consider  what  kind  of  a  world  it  is  in  which 
we  are  asked  to  believe — a  world  which,  so  far  as 
most  people  are  concerned,  can  only  be  at  all 
adequately  conceived  in  terms  of  the  visual  sense, 
but  which  in  its  true  reality  possesses  neither  of  the 
qualities  characteristically  associated  with  the  visual 
sense,  namely,  illumination  and  colour.  A  world 
which  is  half  like  our  ideas  of  it  and  half  unlike  them. 
Like  our  ideas  of  it,  that  is  to  say,  so  far  as  the  so- 
called  primary  qualities  of  matter,  such  as  extension 
and  solidity,  are  concerned  ;  unlike  our  ideas  of  it 
so  far  as  the  so-called  secondary  qualities,  such  as 
warmth  and  colour,  are  concerned,  A  hybrid  world, 
a  world  of  inconsistencies  and  strange  anomalies. 
A  world  one-half  of  which  may  commend  itself  to 
the  empirical  philosopher,  and  the  other  half  of 
which  may  commend  itself  to  the  plain  man,  but 
which  as  a  whole  can  commend  itself  to  neither.  A 
world  which  is  rejected  by  the  first  because  it 
arbitrarily  selects  what  he  regards  as  modes  of 
sensation,  and  hypostatises  them  into  permanent 
realities ;    while    it    is    scarcely    intelligible    to    the 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     123 

second,  because  it  takes  what  he  regards  as  per- 
manent realities,  and  evaporates  them  into  modes  of 
sensation.  A  world,  in  short,  which  seems  to 
harmonise  neither  with  the  conclusions  of  critical 
empiricism  nor  with  the  '  unmistakable  evidence  of 
the  senses '  ;  which  outrages  the  whole  psychology 
of  the  one,  and  is  in  direct  contradiction  with  the 
deliverances  of  the  other. 

So  far  as  the  leading  philosophic  empiricists  are 
concerned — and  it  is  only  with  them  that  we  need 
deal — the  result  of  these  difficulties  has  been  extra- 
ordinary. They  have  found  it  impossible  to 
swallow  this  strange  universe,  consisting  partly  of 
microcosms  furnished  with  impressions  and  ideas 
which,  as  such,  are  of  course  transient  and  essentially 
mental,  partly  of  a  macrocosm  furnished  with 
material  objects  whose  qualities  exactly  resemble 
impressions  and  ideas,  with  the  embarrassing  excep- 
tion that  they  are  neither  transient  nor  mental. 
They  have,  therefore,  been  compelled  by  one  device 
or  another  to  sweep  the  macrocosm  as  conceived  by 
science  altogether  out  of  existence.  In  the  name  of 
experience  itself  they  have  destroyed  that  which 
professes  to  be  experience  systematised.  And  we 
are  presented  with  the  singular  spectacle  of  thinkers 
whose  claim  to  our  consideration  largely  consists  in 
their  uncompromising  empiricism  playingunconscious 
havoc  with  the  most  solid  results  which  empirical 
methods  have  hitherto  attained. 

I  say  '  unconscious  '  havoc,  because,  no  doubt,  the 


i24     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

truth  of  this  indictment  would  not  be  admitted  by 
the  majority  of  those  against  whom  it  is  directed. 
Yet  there  can,  I  think,  be  no  real  question  as  to  its 
truth.  In  the  case  of  Hume  it  will  hardly  be  denied  ; 
and  Hume,  perhaps,  would  himself  have  been  the 
last  to  deny  it.  But  in  the  case  of  John  Mill,  of  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer,1  and  of  Professor  Huxley,  it  is  an 
allegation  which  would  certainly  be  repudiated, 
though  the  evidence  for  it  seems- to  me  to  lie  upon 
the  surface  of  their  speculations.  The  allegation,  be 
it  observed,  is  this — that  while  each  of  these  thinkers 
has  recognised  the  necessity  for  some  independent 
reality  in  relation  to  the  ever-moving  stream  of 
sensations  which  constitute  our  immediate  experi- 
ences, each  of  them  has  rejected  the  independent 
reality  which  is  postulated  and  explained  by  science, 
and  each  of  them  has  substituted  for  it  a  private 
reality  of  his  own.  Where  the  physicist,  for 
example,  assumes  actual  atoms  and  motions  and 
forces,  Mill  saw  nothing  but  permanent  pos- 
sibilities of  sensation,  and  Mr.  Spencer  knows 
nothing  but  '  the  unknowable.'  Without  discussing 
the  place  which  such  entities  may  properly  occupy 
in  the  general  scheme  of  things,  I  content  myself 
with  observing,  what  I  have  elsewhere  endeavoured 


1  It  is  probably  accurate  to  describe  Mr.  Spencer  as  an  empiricist ; 
though  he  has  added  to  the  accustomed  first  principles  of  empiricism 
certain  doctrines  of  his  own  which,  while  they  do  not  strengthen  his 
system,  make  it  somewhat  difficult  to  classify.  The  reader  interested 
in  such  matters  will  find  most  of  the  relevant  points  discussed  in  Philo- 
sophic Doubt,  chaps,  viii.,  ix.,  x. 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     125 

to  demonstrate  at  length,  that  they  cannot  occupy 
the  place  now  filled  by  material  Nature  as  conceived 
by  science.  That  which  is  a  'permanent  possibility,' 
but  is  nothing  more,  is  permanent  only  in  name.  It 
represents  no  enduring  reality,  nothing  which  persists, 
nothing  which  has  any  being  save  during  the  brief 
intervals  when,  ceasing  to  be  a  mere  'possibility,'  it 
blossoms  into  the  actuality  of  sensation.  Before  sen- 
tient beings  were,  it  was  not.  When  they  cease  to 
exist,  it  will  vanish  away.  If  they  change  the  cha- 
racter of  their  sensibility,  it  will  sympathetically  vary 
its  nature.  How  unfit  is  this  unsubstantial  shadow 
of  a  phrase  to  take  the  place  now  occupied  by  that 
material  universe,  of  which  we  are  but  fleeting  acci- 
dents,  whose  attributes  are  for  the  most  part  absolutely 
independent  of  us,  whose  duration  is  incalculable  ! 

A  different  but  not  a  less  conclusive  criticism 
may  be  passed  on  Mr.  Spencer's  'unknowable.' 
For  anything  I  am  here  prepared  to  allege  to  the 
contrary,  this  may  be  real  enough  ;  but,  unfortu- 
nately, it  has  not  the  kind  of  reality  imperatively 
required  by  science.  It  is  not  in  space.  It  is  not 
in  time.  It  possesses  neither  mass  nor  extension  ; 
nor  is  it  capable  of  motion.  Its  very  name  implies 
that  it  eludes  the  grasp  of  thought,  and  cannot  be 
caught  up  into  formulae.  Whatever  purpose,  there- 
fore, such  an  '  object '  may  subserve  in  the  universe 
of  things,  it  is  as  useless  as  a  '  permanent  possibility  ' 
itself  to  provide  subject-matter  for  scientific  treat- 
ment.     If  these  be  all   that  truly  exist  outside  the 


i26     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

circle  of  impressions  and  ideas,  then  is  all  science 
turned  to  foolishness,  and  evolution  stands  confessed 
as  a  mere  figment  of  the  imagination.  Man,  or 
rather  'I,'  become  not  merely  the  centre  of  the 
world,  but  am  the  world.  Beyond  me  and  my  ideas 
there  is  either  nothing,  or  nothing  that  can  be  known. 
The  problems  about  which  we  disquiet  ourselves  in 
vain,  the  origin  of  things  and  the  modes  of  their 
development,  the  inner  constitution  of  matter  and  its 
relations  to  mind,  are  questionings  about  nothing, 
interrogatories  shouted  into  the  void.  The  baseless 
fabric  of  the  sciences,  like  the  great  globe  itself, 
dissolves  at  the  touch  of  theories  like  these,  leaving 
not  a  wrack  behind.  Nor  does  there  seem  to  be 
any  course  open  to  the  consistent  agnostic,  were  such 
a  being  possible,  than  to  /contemplate  in  patience 
I  the  long  procession  of  his-  sensations,  without  dis- 
turbing  himself  with  futile  inquiries  into  what,  if 
anything,  may  lie  beyond.  / 

VII 

There  remains  but  one  problem  further  with 
which  I  need  trouble  the  readers  of  this  chapter.  It 
is  that  raised  by  the  only  remaining  proposition  of 
the  three  with  which  I  promised  just  now  to  deal. 
This  asserts,  it  may  be  recollected,  that  the  principle 
of  causation  and,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  any  other 
universal  principle  of  sense-interpretation,  may  by 
some  process  of  logical  alchemy  be  extracted,  not 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     127 

merely  from  experience  in  general,1  but  even  from 
the  experience  of  a  single  individual. 

But  who,  it  may  be  asked,  is  unreasonable  enough 
to  demand  that  it  should  be  extracted  from  the  ex- 
perience of  a  single  individual  ?  What  is  there  in 
the  empirical  theory  which  requires  us  to  impose  so 
arbitrary  a  limitation  upon  the  sources  of  our  know- 
ledge ?  Have  we  not  behind  us  the  whole  experience 
of  the  race  ?  Is  it  to  count  for  nothing  that  for 
numberless  generations  mankind  has  been  scrutinis- 
ing the  face  of  Nature,  and  storing  up  for  our 
guidance  innumerable  observations  of  the  laws 
which  she  obeys  ?  Yes,  I  reply,  it  is  to  count  for 
nothing  ;  and  for  a  most  simple  reason.  In  making 
this  appeal  to  the  testimony  of  mankind  with  regard 
to  the  world  in  which  they  live,  we  take  for  granted 
that  there  is  such  a  world,  that  mankind  has  had 
experiences  of  it,  and  that,  so  far  as  is  necessary  for 
our  purpose,  we  know  what  those  experiences  have 
been.  But  by  what  right  do  we  take  those  things 
for  granted  ?  They  are  not  axiomatic  or  intuitive 
truths  ;  they  must  be  proved  by  something ;  and 
that  something  must,  on  the  empirical  theory,  be  in 
the  last  resort  experience,  and  experience  alone. 
But  whose  experience  ?  Plainly  it  cannot  be  general 
experience,  for  that  is  the  very  thing  whose  reality 
has  to  be  established,  and  whose  character  is  in 
question.  It  must,  therefore,  in  every  case  and  for 
each  individual  man  be  his  own  personal  experience. 

1  See  Philosophic  Doubt,  ch.  i, 


i28     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

This,  and  only  this,  can  supply  him  with  evidence 
for  those  fundamental  beliefs,  without  whose  guidance 
it  is  impossible  for  him  either  to  reconstruct  the  past 
or  to  anticipate  the  future. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  law  of  causation  ; 
one,  but  by  no  means  the  only  one,  of  those  general 
principles  of  interpretation  which,  as  I  am  con- 
tending, are  presupposed  in  any  appeal  to  general 
experience,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  proved  by  it. 
If  we  endeavour  to  analyse  the  reasoning  by  which 
we  arrive  at  the  conviction  that  any  particular  event 
or  any  number  of  particular  events  have  occurred 
outside  the  narrow  ring  of  our  own  immediate  per- 
ceptions, we  shall  find  that  not  a  step  of  this  process 
can  we  take  without  assuming  that  the  course  of 
Nature  is  uniform x ;  or,  if  not  absolutely  uniform,  at 
least  sufficiently  uniform  to  allow  us  to  argue  with 
tolerable  security  from  effects  to  causes,  or,  if  need 
be,  from  causes  to  effects,  over  great  intervals  of  time 
and  space.  The  whole  of  what  is  called  historical 
evidence  is,  in  its  most  essential  parts,  nothing  more 
than  an  argument  or  series  of  arguments  of  this 
kind.  The  fact  that  mankind  have  given  their 
testimony  to  the  general  uniformity  of  Nature,  or, 
indeed,  to  anything  else,  can  be  established  by 
the  aid  of  that  principle  itself,  and  by  it  alone  ;  so 

1  The  reader  will  find,  some  observations  on  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase,  '  Uniformity  of  Nature,'  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  Essay.  In 
this  chapter  I  have  assumed  (following  empirical  usage)  that  the 
Uniformity  of  Nature  and  the  Law  of  Causation  are  different  expres- 
sions for  the  same  thing. 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     129 

that  if  we  abandon  it,  we  are  in  a  moment  deprived 
of  all  logical  access  to  the  outer  world,  of  all  coo-ni- 
sance  of  other  minds,  of  all  usufruct  of  their 
accumulated  knowledge,  of  all  share  in  the  in- 
tellectual heritage  of  the  race.  While  if  we  cling 
to  it  (as,  to  be  sure,  we  must,  whether  we  like  it  or 
not),  we  can  do  so  only  on  condition  that  we  forego 
every  endeavour  to  prove  it  by  the  aid  of  general 
experience  ;  for  such  a  procedure  would  be  nothing 
less  than  to  compel  what  is  intended  to  be  the  con- 
clusion of  our  argument  to  figure  also  among  the 
most  important  of  its  premises. 

The  problem,  therefore,  is  reduced  to  this  :  Can 
we  find  in  our  personal  experience  adequate  evidence 
of  a  law  which,  like  the  law  of  Causation,  does,  by  the 
very  terms  in  which  it  is  stated,  claim  universal 
jurisdiction,  as  of  right,  to  the  utmost  verge  both  of 
time  and  space.  And  surely,  to  enunciate  such  a 
question  is  to  suggest  the  inevitable  answer.  The 
sequences  familiar  to  us  in  the  petty  round  of  daily 
life,  the  accustomed  recurrence  of  something  re- 
sembling a  former  consequent,  following  on  the  heels 
of  something  resembling  a  former  antecedent,  are 
sufficient  to  generate  the  expectations  and  the  habits 
by  which  we  endeavour,  with  what  success  we  may,  to 
accommodate  our  behaviour  to  the  unyielding  require- 
ments of  the  world  around  us.  But  to  throw  upon 
experiences    such   as  these1   the  whole   burden    of 

1  At  least  in  the  absence  of  any  transcendental  interpretation  of 
them.     See  next  chapter. 

K 


i3o     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

fixing  our  opinions  as  to  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  is  quite  absurd.  It  would  be  absurd 
in  any  case.  It  would  be  absurd  even  if  all  the 
phenomena  of  which  we  have  immediate  knowledge 
succeeded  each  other  according  to  some  obvious  and 
undeviating  order  ;  for  the  contrast  between  this 
microscopic  range  of  observation  and  the  gigantic 
induction  which  it  is  sought  to  rest  thereon,  would 
rob  the  argument  of  all  plausibility.  But  it  is 
doubly  and  trebly  absurd  when  we  reflect  on  what 
our  experiences  really  are.  So  far  are  they  from 
indicating,  when  taken  strictly  by  themselves,  the 
existence  of  a  world  where  all  things  small  and  great 
follow  with  the  most  exquisite  regularity  and  the 
most  minute  obedience  the  bidding  of  unchanging 
law,  that  they  indicate  precisely  the  reverse.  In 
certain  regions  of  experience,  no  doubt,  orderly 
sequence  appears  to  be  the  rule  :  day  alternates 
with  night,  and  summer  follows  upon  spring ;  the 
sun  moves  through  the  zodiac,  and  unsupported 
bodies  fall  usually,  though,  to  be  sure,  not  always,  to 
the  ground.  Even  of  such  elementary  astronomical 
and  physical  facts,  however,  it  could  hardly  be  main- 
tained that  any  man  would  have  a  right,  on  the 
strength  of  his  personal  observation  alone,  confidently 
to  assert  their  undeviating  regularity.  But  when  we 
come  to  the  more  complex  phenomena  with  which 
we  have  to  deal,  the  plain  lesson  taught  by  personal 
observation  is  not  the  regularity,  but  the  irregularity, 
of    Nature.       A    kind    of     ineffectual    attempt    at 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 


X3T 


uniformity,  no  doubt,  is  commonly  apparent,  as  of 
an  ill-constructed  machine  that  will  run  smoothly 
for  a  time,  and  then  for  no  apparent  reason  begin  to 
jerk  and  quiver ;  or  of  a  drunken  man  who,  though 
he  succeeds  in  keeping  to  the  high-road,  yet  pursues 
along  it  a  most  wavering  and  devious  course.  But 
of  that  perfect  adjustment,  that  all-penetrating 
governance  by  law,  which  lies  at  the  root  of  scientific 
inference  we  find  not  a  trace.  In  many  cases  sensa- 
tion follows  sensation,  and  event  hurries  after  event, 
to  all  appearances  absolutely  at  random  :  no  observed 
order  of  succession  is  ever  repeated,  nor  is  it 
pretended  that  there  is  any  direct  causal  connection 
between  the  members  of  the  series  as  they  appear 
one  after  the  other  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
individual.  But  even  when  these  conditions  are 
reversed,  perfect  uniformity  is  never  observed. 
The  most  careful  series  of  experiments  carried  out 
by  the  most  accomplished  investigators  never  show 
identical  results  ;  and  as  for  the  general  mass  of 
mankind,  so  far  are  they  from  finding,  either  in  their 
personal  experiences  or  elsewhere,  any  sufficient 
reason  for  accepting  in  its  perfected  form  the 
principle  of  Universal  Causation,  that,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  this  doctrine  has  been  steadily  ignored  by 
them  up  to  the  present  hour. 

This  apparent  irregularity  of  Nature,  obvious 
enough  when  we  turn  our  attention  to  it,  escapes 
our  habitual  notice,  of  course,  because  we  invariably 
attribute    the    want  of  observed  uniformity   to   the 


1 32     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF  NATURALISM 

errors  of  the  observer.  And  without  doubt  we  do 
well.  But  what  does  this  imply  ?  It  implies  that 
we  bring  to  the  interpretation  of  our  sense-percep- 
tion the  principle  of  causation  ready  made.  It 
implies  that  we  do  not  believe  the  world  to  be 
governed  by  immutable  law  because  our  experiences 
appear  to  be  regular ;  but  that  we  believe  that  our 
experiences,  in  spite  of  their  apparent  irregularity, 
follow  some  (perhaps)  unknown  rule  because  we 
first  believe  the  world  to  be  governed  by  immutable 
law.  But  this  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the  principle 
is  not  proved  by  experience,  but  that  experience  is 
understood  in  the  light  of  the  principle.  Here, 
again,  empiricism  fails  us.  As  in  the  case  of  our 
judgments  about  particular  matters  of  fact,  so  also 
in  the  case  of  these  other  judgments,  whose  scope 
is  co-extensive  with  the  whole  realm  of  Nature,  we 
find  that  any  endeavour  to  formulate  a  rational 
justification  for  them  based  on  experience  alone 
breaks  down,  and,  to  all  appearance,  breaks  down 
hopelessly. 

VIII 

But  even  if  this  reasoning  be  sound,  may  the 
reader  exclaim,  What  is  it  that  we  gain  by  it  ?  What 
harvest  are  we  likely  to  reap  from  such  broadcast 
sowing  of  scepticism  as  this  ?  What  does  it  profit 
us  to  show  that  a  great  many  truths  which  every- 
body believes,  and  which  no  abstract  speculations 
will  induce  us  to  doubt   are  still  waiting  for  a  philo- 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     133 

sophic  proof  ?  Fair  questions,  it  must  be  admitted  , 
questions,  nevertheless,  to  which  I  must  reserve  my 
full  answer  until  a  later  stage  of  our  inquiry.  Yet 
even  now  something  may  be  said,  by  way  of  con- 
clusion to  this  chapter,  on  the  relation  which  these 
criticisms  bear  to  the  scheme  of  thought  whose 
practical  consequences  we  traced  out  in  the  first  part 
of  these  Notes. 

I  begin  by  admitting  that  the  criticisms  them- 
selves are,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  incomplete. 
They  contain  but  the  concise  and  even  meagre 
outline  of  an  argument  which  is  itself  but  a  portion 
only  of  the  whole  case.  For  want  of  space,  or  to 
avoid  unsuitable  technicalities,  much  has  been 
omitted  which  would  have  been  relevant  to  the 
issues  raised,  and  have  still  further  strengthened  the 
position  which  has  been  taken  up.  Yet,  though 
more  might  have  been  said,  what  has  been  said  is, 
in  my  opinion,  sufficient ;  and  I  shall,  therefore,  not 
scruple  henceforth  to  assume  that  a  purely  empirical 
theory  of  things,  a  philosophy  which  depends  for  its 
premises  in  the  last  resort  upon  the  particulars 
revealed  to  us  in  perceptive  experience  alone,  is  one 
that  cannot  rationally  be  accepted. 

Is  this  conclusion,  then,  adverse  to  Naturalism  ? 
And,  if  so,  must  it  not  tell  with  equal  force  against 
Science,  seeing  that  it  is  solely  against  that  part  of 
the  naturalistic  teaching  which  is  taken  over  bodily 
from  Science  that  it  appears  to  be  directed  ?  Of 
these  two  questions,  I  answer  the  first  in  the  affirm- 


134     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

ative,  the  second  in  the  negative.  Doubtless,  if 
empiricism  be  shattered,  it  must  drag  down  natural- 
ism in  its  fall ;  for,  after  all,  naturalism  is  nothing 
more  than  the  assertion  that  empirical  methods  are 
valid,  and  that  no  others  are  so.  But  because  any 
effectual  criticism  of  empiricism  is  the  destruction  of 
naturalism,  is  it  therefore  the  destruction  of  science 
also  ?  Surely  not.  The  adherent  of  naturalism  is  an 
empiricist  from  necessity  ;  the  man  of  science,  if  he 
be  an  empiricist,  is  so  only  from  choice.  The  latter 
may,  if  he  please,  have  no  philosophy  at  all,  or  he 
may  have  a  different  one.  He  is  not  obliged,  any 
more  than  other  men,  to  justify  his  conclusions  by  an 
appeal  to  first  principles  ;  still  less  is  he  obliged  to 
take  his  first  principles  from  so  poor  a  creed  as  the 
one  we  have  been  discussing.  Science  preceded  the 
theory  of  science,  and  is  independent  of  it.  Science 
preceded  naturalism,  and  will  survive  it.  Though 
the  convictions  involved  in  our  practical  conception 
of  the  universe  are  not  beyond  the  reach  of  theoretic 
doubts,  though  we  habitually  stake  our  all  upon 
assumptions  which  we  never  attempt  to  justify,  and 
which  we  could  not  justify  if  we  would,  yet  is  our 
scientific  certitude  unshaken  ;  and  if  we  still  strive 
after  some  solution  of  our  sceptical  difficulties,  it  is 
because  this  is  necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  an 
intellectual  ideal,  not  because  it  is  required  to  fortify 
our  confidence  either  in  the  familiar  teachings  of 
experience  or  m  their  utmost  scientific  expansion. 
And    hence    arises  my  principal  complaint    against 


THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM     135 

naturalism.  With  Empirical  philosophy,  considered 
as  a  tentative  contribution  to  the  theory  of  science, 
I  have  no  desire  to  pick  a  quarrel.  That  it 
should  fail  is  nothing.  Other  philosophies  have 
failed.  Such  is,  after  all,  the  common  lot.  That  it 
should  have  been  contrived  to  justify  conclusions 
already  accepted  is,  if  a  fault  at  all — which  I  doubt — 
at  least  a  most  venial  one,  and  one,  moreover,  which 
it  has  committed  in  the  best  of  philosophic  company. 
That  it  should  derive  some  moderate  degree  of 
imputed  credit  from  the  universal  acceptance  of  the 
scientific  beliefs  which  it  countersigns,  may  be  borne 
with,  though  for  the  real  interests  of  speculative 
inquiry  this  has  been,  I  think,  a  misfortune.  But 
that  it  should  develop  into  naturalism,  and  then,  on 
the  strength  of  labours  which  it  has  not  endured,  of 
victories  which  it  has  not  won,  and  of  scientific 
triumphs  in  which  it  has  no  right  to  share,  presume, 
in  despite  of  its  speculative  insufficiency,  to  dictate 
terms  of  surrender  to  every  other  system  of  belief,  is 
altogether  intolerable.  Who  would  pay  the  slightest 
attention  to  naturalism  if  it  did  not  force  itself  into 
the  retinue  of  science,  assume  her  livery,  and  claim, 
as  a  kind  of  poor  relation,  in  some  sort  to  represent 
her  authority  and  to  speak  with  her  voice  ?  Of 
itself  it  is  nothing.  It  neither  ministers  to  the  needs 
of  mankind,  nor  does  it  satisfy  their  reason.  And 
if,  in  spite  of  this,  its  influence  has  increased,  is 
increasing,  and  as  yet  shows  no  signs  of  diminution  ; 
if  more  and  more  the  educated  and  the  half-educated 


136     THE   PHILOSOPHIC   BASIS   OF   NATURALISM 

are  acquiescing  in  its  pretensions  and,  however 
reluctantly,  submitting  to  its  domination,  this  is,  at 
least  in  part,  because  they  have  not  learned  to 
distinguish  between  the  practical  and  inevitable 
claims  which  experience  has  on  their  allegiance,  and 
the  speculative  but  quite  illusory  title  by  which  the 
empirical  school  have  endeavoured  to  associate 
naturalism  and  science  in  a  kind  of  joint  supremacy 
over  the  thoughts  and  consciences  of  mankind. 


137 


CHAPTER   II 

IDEALISM  ;    AFTER  SOME    RECENT    ENGLISH    WRITINGS l 


THE  difficulties  in  the  way  of  an  empirical  philosophy  of 
science,  with  which  we  dealt  in  the  last  chapter,  largely 
arise  from  the  conflict  which  exists  between  two  parts 
of  a  system,  the  scientific  half   of   which   requires  us  to 

1  The  reader  who  has  no  familiarity  with  philosophic  literature  is 
advised  to  omit  this  chapter.  The  philosophic  reader  will,  I  hope, 
regard  it  as  provisional.  Transcendental  Idealism  is,  if  I  mistake 
not,  at  this  moment  in  rather  a  singular  position  in  this  country.  In 
the  land  of  its  birth  (as  I  am  informed)  it  is  but  little  considered.  In 
English-speaking  countries  it  is,  within  the  narrow  circle  of  professed 
philosophers,  perhaps  the  dominant  mood  of  thought  ;  while  without 
that  circle  it  is  not  so  much  objected  to  as  totally  ignored.  This 
anomalous  state  of  things  is  no  doubt  due  in  part  to  the  inherent 
difficulty  of  the  subject  ;  but  even  more,  I  think,  to  the  fact  that  the 
energy  of  English  Idealists  has  been  consumed  rather  in  the  production 
of  commentaries  on  other  people's  systems  than  in  expositions  of 
their  own.  The  result  of  this  is  that  we  do  not  quite  know  where  we 
are,  that  we  are  more  or  less  in  a  condition  of  expectancy,  and  that 
both  learners  and  critics  are  placed  at  a  disadvantage.  Pending  the 
appearance  of  some  original  work  which  shall  represent  the  con- 
structive views  of  the  younger  school  of  thinkers,  I  have  written  the 
following  chapter,  with  reference  chiefly  to  the  writings  of  the  late 
Mr.  T.  H.  Green,  which  at  present  contain  the  most  important  ex- 
position, so  far  as  I  know,  of  this  phase  of  English  thought.  Mr. 
Bradley's  noteworthy  work,  Appearance  and  Reality,  published 
some  time  after  this  chapter  was  finished,  is  written  with  characteristic 
independence  ;  but  I  know  not  whether  it  has  yet  commanded  any 
large  measure  of  assent  from  the  few  who  are  competent  to  pronounce 
a  verdict  upon  its  merits. 


133  IDEALISM 

regard  experience  as  an  effect  of  an  external  and  in- 
dependent world,  while  the  philosophic  or  epistemological 
half  offers  this  same  experience  to  us  as  the  sole  ground- 
work and  logical  foundation  on  which  any  knowledge 
whatever  of  an  external  and  independent  world  may 
be  rationally  based.  These  difficulties  and  the  argu- 
ments founded  on  them  require  to  be  urged,  in  the  first 
instance,  in  opposition  to  those  who  explicitly  hold  what  I 
have  called  the  'naturalistic'  creed  ;  and  then  to  that  general 
body  of  educated  opinion  which,  though  reluctant  to  con- 
tract its  beliefs  within  the  narrow  circuit  of '  naturalism,' 
yet  habitually  assumes  that  there  is  presented  to  us  in 
science  a  body  of  opinion,  certified  by  reason,  solid,  certain, 
and  impregnable,  to  which  theology  adds,  as  an  edifying 
supplement,  a  certain  number  of  dogmas,  of  which  the 
well-disposed  assimilate  as  many,  but  only  as  many,  as 
their  superior  allegiance  to  '  positive '  knowledge  will  permit 
them  to  digest. 

These  two  classes,  however,  by  no  means  exhaust  the 
kinds  of  opinion  with  which  it  is  necessary  to  deal.  And 
in  particular  there  is  a  metaphysical  school,  few  indeed  in 
numbers,  but  none  the  less  important  in  matters  specula- 
tive, whose  general  position  is  wholly  distinct  and  indepen- 
dent ;  who  would,  indeed,  not  perhaps  very  widely,  dissent 
from  the  negative  conclusions  already  reached,  but  who 
have  their  own  positive  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
universe.  In  their  opinion,  all  the  embarrassments  which 
may  be  shown  to  attend  on  the  empirical  philosophy  are 
due  to  the  fact  that  empirical  philosophers  wholly  mis- 
understand the  essential  nature  of  that  experience  on 
which  they  profess  to  found  their  beliefs.  The  theory  of 
perception  evolved  out  of  Locke,  by  Berkeley  and  Hume, 
which  may  be  traced  without  radical  modification  through 
their  modern  successors,  is,  according  to  the  school  of 
which  I  speak,  at  the  root  of  all  the  mischief.  Of  this 
theory  they  make  short  work.  They  press  to  the  utmost 
the   sceptical   consequences   to   which  it  inevitably  leads. 


IDEALISM  139 

They  show,  or  profess  to  show,  that  it  renders  not  only 
scientific  knowledge,  but  any  knowledge  whatever,  impos- 
sible ;  and  they  offer  as  a  substitute  a  theory  of  experience, 
very  remote  indeed  from  ordinary  modes  of  expression,  by 
which  these  consequences  may,  in  their  judgment,  be  entirely 
avoided. 

The  dimensions  and  character  of  these  Notes  render  it 
impossible,  even  were  I  adequately  equipped  for  the  task, 
to  deal  fully  with  so  formidable  a  subject  as  TRANSCEN- 
DENTAL IDEALISM,  either  in  its  historical  or  in  its  meta- 
physical aspect.  Remote  though  it  be  from  ordinary 
modes  of  thought,  some  brief  discussion  of  the  theory  with 
which,  in  some  recent  English  works,  it  supplies  us  con- 
cerning Nature  and  God  is,  however,  absolutely  necessary ; 
and  I  therefore  here  present  the  following  observations  to 
the  philosophic  reader  with  apologies  for  their  brevity,  and 
to  the  unphilosophic  reader  with  apologies  for  their  length. 

From  what  I  have  already  said  it  is  clear  that  the 
theory  to  which  Transcendental  Idealism  may  be,  from 
our  point  of  view,  considered  as  a  reply,  is  not  the  theory 
of  experience  which  is  taken  for  granted  in  ordinary 
scientific  statement,  but  the  closely  allied  '  psychological 
theory  of  perception '  evolved  by  thinkers  usually  classed 
rather  as  philosophers  than  as  men  of  science.  The  differ- 
ence is  not  wholly  immaterial,  as  will  appear  in  the  sequel. 

What,  then,  is  this  '  psychological  theory  of  perception  '  ? 
Or,  rather,  where  is  the  weak  point  in  it  at  which  it  is  open 
to  attack  by  the  transcendental  idealists  ?  It  lies  in  the 
account  given  by  that  theory  of  the  real.  According  to 
this  account  the  '  real '  in  external  experience,  that  which, 
because  it  is  not  due  to  any  mental  manipulation  by  the 
percipient,  such  as  abstraction  or  comparison,  may  be 
considered  as  the  experienced  fact,  is,  in  ultimate  analysis, 
either  a  sensation  or  a  group  of  sensations.  These  sen- 
sations and  groups  of  sensations  are  subjected  in  the  mind 
to  a  process  of  analysis  and  comparison.  Discrimination  is 
made  between  those  which  arc  unlike.     Those  which  have 


i4o  IDEALISM 

points  of  resemblance  are  called  by  a  common  name.  The 
sequences  and  co-existences  which  obtain  among  them  are 
noted  ;  the  laws  by  which  they  are  bound  together  are 
discovered  ;  and  the  order  in  which  they  may  be  expected 
to  recur  is  foreseen  and  understood. 

Now,  say  the  idealists,  if  everything  of  which  external 
reality  can  be  predicated  is  thus  either  a  sensation  or  a 
group  of  sensations,  if  these  and  these  only  are  '  given '  in 
external  experience,  everything  else,  including  relations, 
being  mere  fictions  of  the  mind,  we  are  reduced  to  the  absurd 
position  of  holding  that  the  real  is  not  only  unknown,  but  is 
also  unknowable.  For  a  brief  examination  of  the  nature  of 
experience  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  an  unrelated  '  thing '  (be 
that  '  thing '  a  sensation  or  a  group  of  sensations),  which  is 
not  qualified  by  its  resemblance  to  other  things,  its  differ- 
ence from  other  things,  and  its  connection  with  other  things, 
is  really,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  no '  thing '  at  all.  It  is 
not  an  object  of  possible  experience  ;  its  true  character  must 
be  for  ever  hid  from  us  ;  or,  rather,  as  character  consists 
simply  in  relations,  it  has  no  character,  nor  can  it  form 
part  of  that  intelligible  world  with  which  alone  we  have  to 
deal. 

Ideas  of  relation  are,  therefore,  required  to  convert  the 
supposed  '  real '  of  external  experience  into  something  of 
which  experience  can  take  note.  But  such  ideas  them- 
selves are  unintelligible,  except  as  the  results  of  the  intel- 
lectual activity  of  some  '  Self  or  '  I.'  They  must  be 
somebody's  thought,  somebody's  ideas  ;  if  only  for  the 
purpose  of  mutual  comparison,  there  must  be  some  bond  of 
union  between  them  other  than  themselves.  Here  again, 
therefore,  the  psychological  analysis  of  experience  breaks 
down,  and  it  becomes  plain  that  just  as  the  real  in  external 
experience  is  real  only  in  virtue  of  an  intellectual  element, 
namely,  ideas  of  relation  (categories),  through  which  it 
was  apprehended,  so  in  internal  experience  ideas  and 
sensations  presuppose  the  existence  of  an  '  I,'  or  self- 
conscious  unity,  which  is  neither  sensation  nor  idea,  which 


IDEALISM  141 

ought  not,  therefore,  on  the  psychological  theory  to  be  con- 
sidered as  having  any  claim  to  reality  at  all,  but  which, 
nevertheless,  is  presupposed  in  the  very  possibility  of 
phenomena  appearing  as  elements  in  a  single  experience. 

We  are  thus  apparently  left  by  the  idealist  theory  face 
to  face  with  a  mind  (thinking  subject)  which  is  the  source 
of  relations  (categories),  and  a  world  which  is  constituted  by 
relations  :  with  a  mind  which  is  conscious  of  itself,  and  a 
world  of  which  that  mind  may  without  metaphor  be  described 
as  the  creator.  We  have,  in  short,  reached  the  central  posi- 
tion of  transcendental  idealism.  But  before  we  proceed 
to  subject  the  system  to  any  critical  observations,  let  us 
ask  what  it  is  we  are  supposed  to  gain  by  endeavouring 
thus  to  rethink  the  universe- from  so  unaccustomed  a  point 
of  view. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  is  claimed  for  this  theory  that 
it  frees  us  from  the  scepticism  which,  in  matters  scientific 
as  well  as  in  matters  theological,  follows  inevitably  upon 
the  psychological  doctrine  of  perception  as  just  explained  : 
a  scepticism  which  not  only  leaves  no  room  for  God  and 
the  soul,  but  destroys  the  very  possibility  of  framing  any 
general  proposition  about  the  '  external '  world,  by  destroy- 
ing the  possibility  of  there  being  any  world,  '  external '  or 
otherwise,  in  which  permanent  relations  shall  exist. 

In  the  second  place,  it  makes  Reason  no  mere  accidental 
excrescence  on  a  universe  of  material  objects  ;  an  element 
to  be  added  to,  or  subtracted  from,  the  sum  of  things  '  as 
the  blind  shock  of  unthinking  causes  may  decide.  Rather 
does  it  make  Reason  the  very  essence  of  all  that  is  or  can 
be  :  the  (immanent)  cause  of  the  world-process  ;  its  origin 
and  its  goal. 

In  the  third  place,  it  professes  to  establish  on  a  firm 
foundation  the  moral  freedom  of  self-conscious  agents. 
That  'Self  which  is  the  prior  condition  of  there  being  a 
natural  world  cannot  be  the  creature  of  that  world.  It 
stands  above  and  beyond  the  sphere  of  causes  and  effects  ; 
it  is  no  mere  object  among  other  objects,  driven  along  its 


M2  IDEALISM 

predestined  course  by  external  forces  in  obedience  to  alien 
laws.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  free,  autonomous  Spirit,  not 
only  bound,  but  able,  to  fulfil  the  moral  commands  which 
^ire  but  the  expression  of  its  own  most  essential  being. 


1  am  reluctant  to  suggest  objections  to  any  theory 
which  promises  results  so  admirable.  Yet  I  cannot  think 
that  all  the  difficulties  with  which  it  is  surrounded  have 
been  fairly  faced,  or,  at  any  rate,  fully  explained,  by  those 
who  accept  its  main  principles.  Consider,  for  example, 
the  crucial  question  of  the  analysis  which  reduces  all 
experience  to  an  experience  of  relations,  or,  in  more 
technical  language,  which  constitutes  the  universe  out  of 
categories.  We  may  grant  without  difficulty  that  the 
contrasted  theory,  which  proposes  to  reduce  the  universe 
to  an  unrelated  chaos  of  impressions  or  sensations,  is  quite 
untenable.  But  must  we  not  also  grant  that  in  all  ex- 
perience there  is  a  refractory  element  which,  though  it 
cannot  be  presented  in  isolation,  nevertheless  refuses 
wholly  to  merge  its  being  in  a  network  of  relations, 
necessary  as  these  may  be  to  give  it  '  significance  for  us 
as  thinking  beings  '  ?  If  so,  whence  does  this  irreducible 
element  arise  ?  The  mind,  we  are  told,  is  the  source  of 
relation.  What  is  the  source  of  that  which  is  related  ?  A 
'  thing-in-itself  which,  by  impressing  the  percipient  mind, 
shall  furnish  the  '  matter '  for  which  categories  provide  the 
'  form,'  is  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty  (if  difficulty  there  be) 
which  raises  more  doubts  than  it  solves.  The  followers  of 
Kant  themselves  make  haste  to  point  out  that  this  hypo- 
thetical cause  of  that  which  is  '  given  '  in  experience  cannot, 
since  ex  hypothesi  it  lies  beyond  experience,  be  known 
as  a  cause,  or  even  as  existing.  Nay,  it  is  not  so  much 
unknown  and  unknowable  as  indescribable  and  unintelli- 
gible ;  not  so  much  a  riddle  whose  meaning  is  obscure 
as  mere  absence  and  vacuity  of  any  meaning  whatever. 
Accordingly,   from    the    speculations   with   which  we    are 


IDEALISM  143 

here  concerned  it  has  been  dismissed  with  ignominy,  and 
it  need  not,  therefore,  detain  us  further. 

But  we  do  not  get  rid  of  the  difficulty  by  getting  rid 
of  Kant's  solution  of  it.  His  dictum  still  seems  to  me  to 
remain  true,  that  '  without  matter  categories  are  empty.' 
And,  indeed,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  it  is  possible  to  conceive 
a  universe  in  which  relations  shall  be  all  in  all,  but  in 
which  nothing  is  to  be  permitted  for  the  relations  to 
subsist  between.  Relations  surely  imply  a  something 
which  is  related,  and  if  that  something  is,  in  the  absence 
of  relations,  '  nothing  for  us  as  thinking  beings,'  so 
relations  in  the  absence  of  that  something  are  mere 
symbols  emptied  of  their  signification  ;  they  are,  in  short, 
an  '  illegitimate  abstraction.' 

Those,  moreover,  who  hold  that  these  all-constituting 
relations  are  the  '  work  of  the  mind '  would  seem  bound 
also  to  hold  that  this  concrete  world  of  ours,  down  to  its 
minutest  detail,  must  evolve  itself  a  priori  out  of  the 
movement  of '  pure  thought.'  There  is  no  room  in  it  for 
the  '  contingent '  ;  there  is  no  room  in  it  for  the  '  given  ' ; 
experience  itself  would  seem  to  be  a  superfluity.  And 
we  are  at  a  loss,  therefore,  to  understand  why  that 
dialectical  process  which  moves,  I  will  not  say  so 
convincingly,  but  at  least  so  smoothly,  through  the 
abstract  categories  of  '  being,'  '  not-being,'  '  becoming,' 
and  so  forth,  should  stumble  and  hesitate  when  it  comes 
to  deal  with  that  world  of  Nature  which  is,  after  all,  one 
of  the  principal  subjects  about  which  we  desire  informa- 
tion. No  explanation  which  I  remember  to  have  seen 
makes  it  otherwise  than  strange  that  we  should,  as  the 
idealists  claim,  be  able  so  thoroughly  to  identify  ourselves 
with  those  thoughts  of  God  which  are  the  necessary  pre- 
liminary to  creation,  but  should  so  little  understand 
creation  itself;  that  we  should  out  of  our  unaided  mental 
resources  be  competent  to  reproduce  the  whole  ground- 
plan  of  the  universe,  and  should  yet  lose  ourselves  so 
hopelessly  in  the  humblest  of  its  ante-rooms. 


144  IDEALISM 

This  difficulty  at  once  requires  us  to  ask  on  what 
ground  it  is  alleged  that  these  constitutive  relations  are 
the  '  work  of  the  mind.'  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  ordinary 
usage  would  describe  as  mental  products  the  more  abstract 
thoughts  (categories),  such,  for  example,  as  '  being,'  '  not- 
being,'  '  causation,'  '  reciprocity,'  &c.  But  it  must  be 
recollected,  in  the  first  place,  that  transcendental  idealism 
does  not,  as  a  rule,  derive  its  inspiration  from  ordinary 
usage ;  and  in  the  second  place,  that  even  ordinary  usage 
alters  its  procedure  when  it  comes  to  such  more  con- 
crete cases  of  relation  as,  for  instance,  '  shape '  and 
'  position,'  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  are  always  considered 
as  belonging  to  the  '  external '  world,  and  presented  by 
the  external  world  to  thought,  not  created  by  thought  for 
itself. 

Are  the  transcendental  idealists,  then,  bound  by  their 
own  most  essential  principles,  in  opposition  both  to  their 
arguments  against  Kant's  'thing-in-itself'  and  to  the 
ordinary  beliefs  of  mankind,  to  invest  the  thinking  'self 
with  this  attribute  of  causal  or  guasz-ca.usa\  activity  ?  It 
certainly  appears  to  me  that  they  are  not.  Starting,  it  will 
be  recollected,  from  the  analysis  (criticism)  of  experience, 
they  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  world  of  objects 
exists  and  has  a  meaning  only  for  the  self-conscious  '  I ' 
(subject),  and  that  the  self-conscious  '  I '  only  knows  itself 
in  contrast  and  in  opposition  to  the  world  of  objects.  Each 
is  necessary  to  the  other ;  in  the  absence  of  the  other 
neither  has  any  significance.  How,  then,  can  we  venture  to 
say  of  one  that  the  other  is  its  product  ?  and  if  we  say  it  of 
either,  must  we  not  in  consistency  insist  on  saying  it  of 
both  ?  Thus,  though  the  presence  of  a  self-conscious  prin- 
ciple may  be  necessary  to  constitute  the  universe,  it  cannot 
be  considered  as  the  creator  of  that  universe  ;  or  if  it  be, 
then  must  we  acknowledge  that  precisely  in  the  same  way 
and  precisely  to  the  same  extent  is  the  universe  the  creator 
of  the  self-conscious  principle. 

All,  therefore,  that  the  transcendental  argument  requires 


IDEALISM 


'45 


or  even  allows  us  to  accept,  is  a  '  manifold '  of  relations 
on  the  one  side,  and  a  bare  self-conscious  principle  of  unity 
on  the  other,  by  which  that  manifold  becomes  inter- 
connected in  the  '  field  of  a  single  experience.'  We  are 
not  permitted,  except  by  a  process  of  abstraction  which 
is  purely  temporary  and  provisional,  to  consider  the  '  mani- 
fold '  apart  from  the  '  unity,'  nor  the  '  unity  '  apart  from  the 
'  manifold.'  The  thoughts  do  not  make  the  thinker,  nor 
the  thinker  the  thoughts  ;  but  together  they  constitute 
that  Whole  or  Absolute  whose  elements,  as  they  are  mere 
no-sense  apart  from  one  another,  cannot  in  strictness  be 
even  said  to  contribute  separately  towards  the  total  result. 

Ill 

Now  let  us  consider  what  bearing  this  conclusion  has 
upon  (i)  Theology,  (2)  Ethics,  and  (3)  Science. 

1.  As  regards  Theology,  it  might  be  supposed  that  at 
least  idealism  provided  us  with  a  universe  which,  if  not 
created  or  controlled  by  Reason  (creation  and  control  imply- 
ing causal  action),  may  yet  properly  be  said  to  be  through- 
out infused  by  Reason  and  to  be  in  necessary  harmony  with 
it.  But  on  a  closer  examination  difficulties  arise  which 
somewhat  mar  this  satisfactory  conclusion.  In  the  first 
place,  if  theology  is  to  provide  us  with  a  groundwork  for 
religion,  the  God  of  whom  it  speaks  must  be  something- 
more  than  the  bare  '  principle  of  unity '  required  to  give 
coherence  to  the  multiplicity  of  Nature.  Apart  from  Nature 
He  is,  on  the  theory  we  are  considering,  a  mere  meta- 
physical abstraction,  the  geometrical  point  through  which 
pass  all  the  threads  which  make  up  the  web  of  possible 
experience  :  no  fitting  object,  surely,  of  either  love,  rever- 
ence, or  devotion.  In  combination  with  Nature  He  is  no 
doubt '  the  principle  of  unity,'  and  all  the  fulness  of  concrete 
reality  besides ;  but  every  quality  with  which  He  is  thus 
associated  belongs  to  that  portion  of  the  Absolute  Whole 
from  which,  by  hypothesis,  He  distinguishes  Himself;  and 
were  it  otherwise,  we  cannot  find  in  these  qualities,  com- 

L 


146  IDEALISM 

pacted,  as  they  are,  of  good  and  bad,  of  noble  and  base,  the 
Perfect  Goodness  without  which  religious  feelings  can 
never  find  an  adequate  object.  Thus,  neither  the  combining 
principle  alone,  nor  the  combining  principle  considered  in 
its  union  with  the  multiplicity  which  it  combines,  can  satisfy 
the  requirements  of  an  effectual  theology.  Not  the  first, 
because  it  is  a  barren  abstraction  ;  not  the  second,  because 
in  its  all-inclusive  universality  it  holds  in  suspension,  with- 
out preference  and  without  repulsion,  every  element  alike  of 
the  knowable  world.  Of  these  none,  whatever  be  its  nature, 
be  it  good  or  bad,  base  or  noble,  can  be  considered  as  alien 
to  the  Absolute  :  all  are  necessary,  and  all  are  characteristic. 

Of  these  two  alternatives,  I  understand  that  it  is  the  first 
which  is  usually  adopted  by  the  school  of  thought  with 
which  we  are  at  present  concerned.  It  may  therefore  be 
desirable  to  reiterate  that  a  '  unifying  principle '  can,  as  such, 
have  no  qualities,  moral  or  otherwise.  Lovingkindness, 
for  example,  and  Equity  are  attributes  which,  like  all  attri- 
butes, belong  not  to  the  unifying  principle,  but  to  the  world 
of  objects  which  it  constitutes.  They  are  conceptions  which 
belong  to  the  realm  of  empirical  psychology.  Nor  can  I  see 
any  method  by  which  they  are  to  be  hitched  on  to  the 
'pure  spiritual  subject,' as  elements  making  up  its  essential 
character. 

2.  But  if  this  be  so,  what  is  the  ethical  value  of  that 
freedom  which  is  attributed  by  the  idealistic  theory  to  the 
self-conscious  '  I '  ?  It  is  true  that  this  '  I '  as  conceived  by 
idealism  is  above  all  the  'categories,'  including,  of  course, 
the  category  of  causation.  It  is  not  in  space  nor  in  time. 
It  is  subject  neither  to  mutation  nor  decay.  The  stress  of 
material  forces  touches  it  not,  nor  is  it  in  any  servitude  to 
chance  or  circumstance,  to  inherited  tendencies  or  acquired 
habits.  But  all  these  immunities  and  privileges  it  possesses 
in  virtue  of  its  being,  not  an  agent  in  a  world  of  concrete 
fact,  but  a  thinking  '  subject,'  for  whom  alone,  as  it  is  alleged, 
such  a  world  exists.  Its  freedom  is  metaphysical,  not  moral ; 
for  moral  freedom  can  only  have  a  meaning  at  all  in  refer- 


IDEALISM 


147 


ence  to  a  being  who  acts  and  who  wills,  and  is  only  of  real 
importance  for  us  in  relation  to  a  being  who  not  only  acts, 
but  is  acted  on,  who  not  only  wills,  but  who  wills  against 
the  opposing  influences  of  temptation.  Such  freedom  can- 
not, it  is  plain,  be  predicated  of  a  mere  'subject,'  nor  is  the 
freedom  proper  to  a  '  subject '  of  any  worth  to  man  as 
'  object,'  to  man  as  known  in  experience,  to  man  fighting 
his  way  with  varying  fortunes  against  the  stream  of  adverse 
circumstances,  in  a  world  made  up  of  causes  and  effects.1 
These  observations  bring  into  sufficiently  clear  relief  the 

1  This  proposition  would,  probably,  not  be  widely  dissented  from 
by  some  of  the  ethical  writers  of  the  idealist  school.  The  freedom 
which  they  postulate  is  not  the  freedom  merely  of  the  pure  self-con- 
scious subject.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  individual,  with  all  his 
qualities,  passions,  and  emotions,  who  in  their  view  possesses  free 
will.  But  the  ethical  value  of  the  freedom  thus  attributed  to  self- 
conscious  agents  seems  on  further  examination  to  disappear.  Man- 
kind, it  seems,  are  on  this  theory  free,  but  their  freedom  does  not 
exclude  determinism,  but  only  that  form  of  determi7iismivhich  consists 
in  external  constraint.  Their  actions  are  upon  this  view  strictly  pre- 
scribed by  their  antecedents,  but  these  antecedents  are  nothing  other 
than  the  characters  of  the  agents  themselves. 

Now  it  may  seem  at  first  sight  plausible  to  describe  that  man  as 
free  whose  behaviour  is  due  to  '  himself  alone.  But  without  quar- 
relling over  words,  it  is,  I  think,  plain  that,  whether  it  be  proper  to  call 
him  free  or  not,  he  at  least  lacks  freedom  in  the  sense  in  which  free- 
dom is  necessary  in  order  to  constitute  responsibility.  It  is  impossible 
to  say  of  him  that  he  '  ought,'  and  therefore  he  '  can.'  For  at  any 
given  moment  of  his  life  his  next  action  is  by  hypothesis  strictly 
determined.  This  is  also  true  of  every  previous  moment,  until  we  get 
back  to  that  point  in  his  life's  history  at  which  he  cannot,  in  any  in- 
telligible sense  of  the  term,  be  said  to  have  a  character  at  all.  Ante- 
cedently to  this,  the  causes  which  have  produced  him  are  in  no  special 
sense  connected  with  his  individuality,  but  form  part  of  the  general 
complex  of  phenomena  which  make  up  the  world.  It  is  evident,  there- 
fore, that  every  act  which  he  performs  may  be  traced  to  pre-natal,  and  ; 
possibly  to  purely  material,  antecedents,  and  that,  even  if  it  be  true 
that  what  he  does  is  the  outcome  of  his  character,  his  character  itself 
is  the  outcome  of  causes  over  which  he  has  not,  and  cannot  by  any 
possibility  have,  the  smallest  control.  Such  a  theory  destroys  re- 
sponsibility, and  leaves  our  actions  the  inevitable  outcome  of  external  U 
conditions  not  less  completely  than  any  doctrine  of  controlling  fate,  / 
whether  materialistic  or  theological. 

L  2 


i48  IDEALISM 

difficulty  which  exists,  on  the  idealistic  theory,  in  bringing 
together  into  any  sort  of  intelligible  association  the  '  I '  as 
supreme  principle  of  unity,  and  the  '  I '  of  empirical  psych- 
ology, which  has  desires  and  fears,  pleasures  and  pains,  facul- 
ties and  sensibilities  ;  which  was  not  a  little  time  since,  and 
which  a  little  time  hence  will  be  no  more.  The  '  I '  as  prin- 
ciple of  unity  is  outside  time ;  it  can  have,  therefore,  no 
history.  The  '  I '  of  experience,  which  learns  and  forgets, 
which  suffers  and  which  enjoys,  unquestionably  has  a  history. 
What  is  the  relation  between  the  two  ?  We  seem  equally 
precluded  from  saying  that  they  are  the  same,  and  from 
saying  that  they  are  different.  We  cannot  say  that  they 
are  the  same,  because  they  are,  after  all,  divided  by  the  whole 
chasm  which  distinguishes  'subject'  from  'object.'  We 
cannot  say  they  are  different,  because  our  feelings  and  our 
desires  seem  a  not  less  interesting  and  important  part  of 
ourselves  than  a  mere  unifying  principle  whose  functions, 
after  all,  are  of  a  purely  metaphysical  character.  We  can- 
not say  they  are  '  two  aspects  of  the  same  thing,'  because 
there  is  no  virtue  in  this  useful  phrase  which  shall  empower 
it  on  the  one  hand  to  ear-mark  a  fragment  of  the  world  of 
objects,  and  say  of  it,  '  this  is  I,'  or,  on  the  other,  to  take  the 
'  pure  subject '  by  which  the  world  of  objects  is  constituted, 
and  say  of  it  that  it  shall  be  itself  an  object  in  that  world 
from  which  its  essential  nature  requires  it  to  be  self-dis- 
tinguished. 

But  as  it  thus  seems  difficult  or  impossible  intelligibly  to 
unite  into  a  personal  whole  the  '  pure '  and  the  '  empirical ' 
Self,  so  it  is  difficult  or  impossible  to  conceive  the  relations 
between  the  pure,  though  limited,  self-consciousness  which  is 
1 1 '  and  the  universal  and  eternal  Self-consciousness  which 
is  God.  The  first  has  been  described  as  a  '  mode  '  or  'mani- 
festation' of  the  second.  But  are  we  not,  in  using  such  lan- 
guage, falling  into  the  kind  of  error  against  which,  in  other 
connections,  the  idealists  are  most  careful  to  warn  us  ?  Are 
we  not  importing  a  category  which  has  its  meaning  and  its 
use  in  the  world  of  objects  into  a  transcendental  region 


IDEALISM  i49 

where  it  really  has  neither  meaning  nor  use  at  all  ?  Grant, 
however,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  it  has  a  meaning  ; 
grant  that  we  may  legitimately  describe  one  '  pure  subject ' 
as  a  '  mode '  or  '  manifestation  '  of  another — how  is  this 
partial  identity  to  be  established  ?  How  can  we,  who  start 
from  the  basis  of  our  own  limited  self-consciousness,  rise  to 
the  knowledge  of  that  completed  and  divine  self-conscious- 
ness of  which,  according  to  the  theory,  we  share  the 
essential  nature  ? 

The  difficulty  is  evaded  but  not  solved  in  those  state- 
ments of  the  idealist  theory  which  always  speak  of 
Thought  without  specifying  whose  Thought.  It  seems  to 
be  thus  assumed  that  the  thought  is  God's,  and  that  in 
rethinking  it  we  share  His  being.  But  no  such  assumption 
would  seem  to  be  justifiable.  For  the  basis,  we  know,  of 
the  whole  theory  is  a  '  criticism  '  or  analysis  of  the  essential 
elements  of  experience.  But  the  criticism  must,  for  each 
of  us,  be  necessarily  of  his  ozun  experience,  for  of  no  other 
experience  can  he  know  anything,  except  indirectly  and  by 
way  of  inference  from  his  own.  What,  then,  is  this  criticism 
supposed  to  establish  (say)  for  me  ?  Is  it  that  experience 
depends  upon  the  unification  by  a  self-conscious  '  I '  of  a 
world  constituted  by  relations  ?  In  strictness,  No.  It  can 
only  establish  that  my  experience  depends  upon  a  unifica- 
tion by  my  self-conscious  '  I '  of  a  world  of  relations  present 
to  me,  and  to  me  alone.  To  this  '  I,'  to  this  particular 
'  self-conscious  subject,'  all  other  '  I's,'  including  God, 
must  be  objects,  constituted  like  all  objects  by  relations, 
rendered  possible  or  significant  only  by  their  unification 
in  the  '  content  of  a  single  experience ' — namely,  my 
own.  In  other  words,  that  which  (if  it  exists  at  all)  is 
essentially  '  subject '  can  only  be  known,  or  thought  of,  or 
spoken  about,  as  '  object'  Surely  a  very  paradoxical  con- 
clusion. 

It  may  perhaps  be  said  by  way  of  reply,  that  in  talking 
of  particular  '  I's'  and  particular  experiences  we  are  using 
language  properly  applicable  only  to  the  '  self  dealt  with 


150  IDEALISM 

by  the  empirical  psychologist,  the  '  self '  which  is  not  the 
'subject,'  but  the  'object,'  of  experience.  I  will  not  dispute 
about  terms  ;  and  the  relations  which  exist  between  the 
'  pure  ego  '  and  the  '  empirical  ego  '  are,  as  I  have  already- 
said,  so  obscure  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  employ  a 
perfectly  accurate  terminology  in  endeavouring  to  deal 
with  them.  Yet  this  much  would  seem  to  be  certain.  If 
the  words  '  self,'  '  ego,'  '  I,'  are  to  be  used  intelligibly  at  all, 
they  must  mean,  whatever  else  they  do  or  do  not  mean,  a 
'somewhat' which  is  self-distinguished, not  only  from  every 
other  knowable  object,  but  also  from  every  other  possible 
'  self.'  What  we  are  '  in  ourselves,'  apart  from  the  flux  of 
thoughts  and  feelings  which  move  in  never-ending  pageant 
through  the  chambers  of  consciousness,  metaphysicians 
have,  indeed,  found  it  hard  to  say.  Some  of  them  have 
said  we  are  nothing.  But  if  this  conclusion  be,  as  I  think  it 
is,  conformable  neither  to  our  instinctive  beliefs  nor  to  a 
sound  psychology ;  if  we  are,  as  I  believe,  more  than  a 
mere  series  of  occurrences,  yet  it  seems  equally  certain 
that  the  very  notion  of  Personality  excludes  the  idea  of 
any  one  person  being  a  '  mode '  of  any  other,  and  forces 
us  to  reject  from  philosophy  a  supposition  which,  if  it  be 
tolerable  at  all,  can  find  a  place  only  in  mysticism. 

But  the  idealistic  theory  pressed  to  its  furthest  conclu- 
sions requires  of  us  to  reject,  as  it  appears  to  me,  even 
more  than  this.  We  are  not  only  precluded  by  it  from 
identifying  ourselves,  even  partially,  with  the  Eternal  Con- 
sciousness :  we  are  also  precluded  from  supposing  that  either 
the  Eternal  Consciousness  or  any  other  consciousness  exists, 
save  only  our  own.  For,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  Eternal 
Consciousness,  if  it  is  to  be  known,  can  only  be  known  on 
the  same  conditions  as  any  other  object  of  knowledge.  It 
must  be  constituted  by  relations  ;  it  must  form  part  of  the 
'  content  of  experience '  of  the  knower  ;  it  must  exist  as 
part  of  the  '  multiplicity  '  reduced  to  '  unity '  by  his  self- 
consciousness.  But  to  say  that  it  can  only  be  known  on 
these  terms,  is  to  say  that  it  cannot  be  known  as  it  exists ; 


IDEALISM  151 

for  if  it  exists  at  all,  it  exists  by  hypothesis  as  Eternal 
Subject,  and  as  such  it  clearly  is  not  constituted  by  rela- 
tions, nor  is  it  either  a  '  possible  object  of  experience,'  or 
'  anything  for  us  as  thinking  beings.' 

No  consciousness,  then,  is  a  possible  object  of  know- 
ledge for  any  other  consciousness  :  a  statement  which,  on 
the  idealistic  theory  of  knowledge,  is  equivalent  to  saying 
that  for  any  one  consciousness  all  other  consciousnesses  are 
less  than  non-existent.  For  as  that  which  is  '  critically ' 
shown  to  be  an  inevitable  element  in  experience  has 
thereby  conferred  on  it  the  highest  possible  degree  of 
reality,  so  that  which  cannot  on  any  terms  become  an 
element  in  experience  falls  in  the  scale  of  reality  far  below 
mere  not-being,  and  is  reduced,  as  we  have  seen,  to  mere 
meaningless  no-sense.  By  this  kind  of  reasoning  the 
idealists  themselves  demonstrate  the  '  I '  to  be  necessary  ; 
the  unrelated  object  and  the  thing-in-itself  to  be  impossible. 
Not  less,  by  this  kind  of  reasoning,  must  each  one  of  us 
severally  be  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  in  the  infinite 
variety  of  the  universe  there  is  room  for  but  one  knowing 
subject,  and  that  this  subject  is  '  himself  l 

1  Prof.  Caird,  in  his  most  interesting  and  suggestive  lecture  on 
the  Evolution  of  Religion,  puts  forward  a  theory  essentially  different 
from  the  one  I  have  just  been  dealing  with.  In  his  view,  a  multiplicity 
of  objects  apprehended  by  a  single  self-conscious  subject  does  not 
suffice  to  constitute  an  intelligible  universe.  The  world  of  objects  and 
the  perceiving  mind  are  themselves  opposites  which  require  a  higher 
unity  to  hold  them  together.  This  higher  unity  is  God  ;  so  that  by 
the  simplest  of  metaphysical  demonstrations  Prof.  Caird  lays  deep 
the  foundations  of  his  theology,  and  proves  not  only  that  God  exists, 
but  that  His  Being  is  philosophically  involved  in  the  very  simplest  of 
our  experiences. 

I  confess,  with  regret,  that  this  reasoning  appears  to  me  inconclu- 
sive. Surely  we  must  think  of  God  as,  on  the  transcendental  theory, 
we  think  of  ourselves  ;  that  is,  as  a  Subject  distinguishing  itself  from, 
but  giving  unity  to,  a  world  of  phenomena.  But  if  such  a  Subject 
and  such  a  world  cannot  be  conceived  without  also  postulating  some 
higher  unity  in  which  their  differences  shall  vanish  and  be  dissolved, 
then  God  Himself  would  require  some  yet  higher  deity  to  explain 
His  existence.     If,  in  short,  a  multiplicity  of  phenomena  presented  to 


IDEALISM 


3.  That  the  transcendental  '  solipsism  '  which  is  the  natu- 
ral outcome  of  such  speculations  is  not  less  inconsistent 
with  science,  morality,  and  common-sense  than  the  psycho- 
logical, or  Berkeleian  1  form  of  the  same  creed,  is  obvious. 
But  without  attempting  further  to  press  idealism  to  results 
which,  whether  legitimate  or  not,  all  idealists  would  agree 
in  repudiating,  let  me,  in  conclusion,  point  out  how  little 
assistance  this  theory  is  able  under  any  circumstances  to 
afford  us  in  solving  important  problems  connected  with 
the  Philosophy  of  Science. 

The  psychology  of  Hume,  as  we  have  seen,  threw  doubt 
upon  the  very  possibility  of  legitimately  framing  general 
propositions  about  the  world  of  objects.  The  observation 
of  isolated  and  unrelated  impressions  of  sense,  which  is  in 
effect  what  experience  became  reduced  to  under  his  process 
of  analysis,  may  generate  habits  of  expectation,  but  never 
can  justify  rational  beliefs.  The  law  of  universal  causa- 
tion, for  example,  can  never  be  proved  by  a  mere  repeti- 
tion, however  prolonged,  of  similar  sequences,  though  the 
repetition  may,  through  the  association  of  ideas,  gradually 
compel  us  to  expect  the  second  term  of  the  sequence 
whenever  the  first  term  comes  within  the  field  of  our  obser- 
vation. So  far  Hume  as  interpreted  by  the  transcendental 
idealists. 

and  apprehended  by  a  conscious  '  I '  form  together  an  intelligible  and 
self-sufficient  whole,  then  it  is  hard  to  see  by  what  logic  we  are  to  get 
beyond  the  solipsism  which,  as  I  have  urged  in  the  text,  seems  to  be 
the  necessary  outcome  of  one  form,  at  least,  of  the  transcendental 
argument.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  subject  and  object  cannot  form 
such  an  intelligible  and  self-sufficient  whole,  then  it  seems  impossible 
to  imagine  what  is  the  nature  of  that  Infinite  One  in  which  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  things  and  persons  find  their  ultimate  unity.  Of  such  a 
God  we  can  have  no  knowledge,  nor  can  we  say  that  we  are  formed 
in  His  image,  or  share  His  essence. 

1  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  Berkeley  was  a 
'  solipsist.'  On  the  scientific  bearing  of  psychological  idealism,  see 
Philosophic  Doubt,  chap.  ix. 


IDEALISM  153 

Now,  how  is  this  difficulty  met  on  the  idealistic  theory? 
Somewhat  in  this  way.  These  categories  or  general  prin- 
ciples of  relation  have  not,  say  the  idealists,  to  be  collected 
(so  to  speak)  from  individual  and  separate  experiences  (as 
the  empirical  philosophers  believe,  but  as  Hume,  the  chief 
among  empiricists,  showed  to  be  impossible) ;  neither  are 
they,  as  the  a  priori  philosophers  supposed,  part  of  the 
original  furniture  of  the  observing  mind,  intended  by  Provi- 
dence to  be  applied  as  occasion  arises  to  the  world  of 
experience  with  which  by  a  beneficent,  if  unexplained, 
adaptation  they  find  themselves  in  a  pre-established  har- 
mony. On  the  contrary,  they  are  the  '  necessary priusj  the 
antecedent  condition,  of  there  being  any  experience  at  all ; 
so  that  the  difficulty  of  subsequently  extracting  them  from 
experience  does  not  arise.  The  world  of  phenomena  is  in 
truth  their  creation  ;  so  that  the  conformity  between  the 
two  need  not  be  any  subject  of  surprise.  Thus,  at  one  and 
the  same  time  does  idealism  vindicate  experience  and  set 
the  scepticism  of  the  empiricist  at  rest. 

I  doubt,  however,  whether  this  solution  of  the  problem 
will  really  stand  the  test  of  examination.  Assuming  for 
the  sake  of  argument  that  the  world  is  constituted  by 
'  categories,'  the  old  difficulty  arises  in  a  new  shape  when 
we  ask  on  what  principle  those  categories  are  in  any  given 
case  to  be  applied,  For  they  are  admittedly  not  of  uni- 
versal application  ;  and,  as  the  idealists  themselves  are 
careful  to  remind  us,  there  is  no  more  fertile  source  of  error 
than  the  importation  of  them  into  a  sphere  wherein  they 
have  no  legitimate  business.  Take,  for  example,  the  cate- 
gory of  causation,  from  a  scientific  point  of  view  the  most 
important  of  all.  By  what  right  does  the  existence  of  this 
'  principle  of  relation '  enable  us  to  assert  that  throughout 
the  whole  world  every  event  must  have  a  cause,  and  every 
cause  must  be  invariably  succeeded  by  the  same  event? 
Because  we  can  apply  the  category,  are  we,  therefore,  bound 
to  apply  it  ?  Does  any  absurdity  or  contradiction  ensue 
from  our  supposing  that  the  order  of  Nature  is  arbitrary 


154  IDEALISM 

and  casual,  and  that,  repeat  the  antecedent  with  what 
accuracy  we  may,  there  is  no  security  that  the  accustomed 
consequent  will  follow  ?  I  must  confess  that  I  can  perceive 
none.  Of  course,  we  should  thus  be  deprived  of  one  of  our 
most  useful  '  principles  of  unification  '  ;  but  this  would  by 
no  means  result  in  the  universe  resolving  itself  into  that 
unthinkable  chaos  of  unrelated  atoms  which  is  the  idealist 
bugbear.  There  are  plenty  of  categories  left ;  and  if  the 
final  aim  of  philosophy  be,  indeed,  to  find  the  Many  in  One 
and  the  One  in  Many,  this  end  would  be  as  completely,  if 
not  as  satisfactorily,  accomplished  by  conceiving  the  world 
to  be  presented  to  the  thinking  '  subject '  in  the  haphazard 
multiplicity  of  unordered  succession,  as  by  any  more  elabo- 
rate method.  Its  various  elements  lying  side  by  side  in  one 
Space  and  one  Time  would  still  be  related  together  in  the 
content  of  a  single  experience ;  they  would  still  form  an 
intelligible  whole  ;  their  unification  would  thus  be  effectually 
accomplished  without  the  aid  of  the  higher  categories.  But 
it  is  evident  that  a  universe  so  constituted,  though  it  might 
not  be  inconsistent  with  Philosophy,  could  never  be  inter- 
preted by  Science. 

As  we  saw  in  the  earlier  portion  of  this  chapter,  it  is 
not  very  easy  to  understand  why,  if  the  universe  be  consti- 
tuted by  relations,  and  relations  are  the  work  of  the  mind, 
the  mind  should  be  dependent  on  experience  for  finding 
out  anything  about  the  universe.  But  granting  the  neces- 
sity of  experience,  it  seems  as  hard  to  make  that  experience 
answer  our  questions  on  the  idealist  as  on  the  empirical 
hypothesis.  Neither  on  the  one  theory  nor  on  the  other 
does  any  method  exist  for  extracting  general  truths  out 
of  particular  observations,  unless  some  general  truths  are 
first  assumed.  On  the  empirical  hypothesis  there  are  no 
such  general  truths.  Pure  empiricism  has,  therefore,  no 
claim  to  be  a  philosophy.  On  the  idealist  hypothesis 
there  appears  to  be  only  one  general  truth  applicable  to 
the  whole  intelligible  world — a  world  which,  be  it  recol- 
lected, includes  everything  in  respect  to  which  language 


IDEALISM  155 

can  be  significantly  used ;  a  world  which,  therefore, 
includes  the  negative  as  well  as  the  positive,  the  false  as 
well  as  the  true,  the  imaginary  as  well  as  the  real,  the 
impossible  as  well  as  the  possible.  This  single  all- 
embracing  truth  is  that  the  multiplicity  of  phenomena, 
whatever  be  its  nature,  must  always  be  united,  and  only 
exists  in  virtue  of  being  united,  in  the  experience  of  a 
single  self-conscious  Subject.  But  this  general  proposition, 
whatever  be  its  value,  cannot,  I  conceive,  effectually  guide 
us  in  the  application  of  subordinate  categories.  It  supplies 
us  with  no  method  for  applying  one  principle  rather  than 
another  within  the  field  of  experience.  It  cannot  give  us 
information  as  to  what  portion  of  that  field,  if  any,  is 
subject  to  the  law  of  causation,  nor  tell  us  which  of  our 
perceptions,  if  any,  may  be  taken  as  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  a  permanent  world  of  objects  such  as  is  implied 
in  all  scientific  doctrine.  Though,  therefore,  the  old 
questions  come  upon  us  in  a  new  form,  clothed,  I  will  not 
say  shrouded,  in  a  new  terminology,  they  come  upon  us 
with  all  the  old  insistence.  They  are  restated,  but  they 
are  not  solved ;  and  I  am  unable,  therefore,  to  find  in 
idealism  any  escape  from  the  difficulties  which,  in  the 
region  of  theology,  ethics,  and  science,  empiricism  leaves 
upon  our  hands.1 

1  I  have  made  in  this  chapter  no  reference  to  the  idealistic  theory 
of  aesthetics.  Holding  the  views  I  have  indicated  upon  the  general 
import  of  idealism,  such  a  course  seemed  unnecessary.  But  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  even  those  who  find  in  that  theory  a  more  satis- 
factory basis  for  their  convictions  than  I  am  able  to  do,  must  feel  that 
there  is  something  rather  forced  and  arbitrary  in  the  attempts  that 
have  been  made  to  exhibit  the  artistic  fancies  of  an  insignificant  frac- 
tion of  the  human  race  during  a  very  brief  period  of  its  history  as 
essential  and  important  elements  in  the  development  and  manifestation 
of  the  '  Idea.' 


i56 


CHAPTER   III 

PHILOSOPHY   AND    RATIONALISM 
I 

Briefly,  if  not  adequately,  I  have  now  endeavoured 
to  indicate  the  weaknesses  which  seem  to  me  to  be 
inseparable  from  any  empirical  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  almost  equally  to  beset  the  idealistic 
theory  in  the  form  given  to  it  by  its  most  systematic 
exponents  in  this  country.  The  reader  may  perhaps 
feel  tempted  to  ask  whether  I  propose,  in  what 
purports  to  be  an  Introduction  to  Theology,  to  pass 
under  similar  review  all  the  metaphysical  systems 
which  have  from  time  to  time  held  sway  in  the 
schools,  or  have  affected  the  general  course  of 
speculative  opinion.  He  need,  however,  be  under 
no  alarm.  My  object  is  strictly  practical  ;  and  I 
have  no  concern  with  theories,  however  admirable, 
which  can  no  longer  pretend  to  any  living  philo- 
sophic power — which  have  no  de  facto  claims  to 
present  us  with  a  reasoned  scheme  of  knowledge, 
and  which  cannot  prove  their  importance  by  actually 
supplying    grounds    for    the    conviction    of    some 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM  157 

fraction,  at  least,  of  those  by  whom  these  pages  may 
conceivably  be  read. 

In  saying  that  this  condition  is  not  satisfied  by 
the  great  historic  systems  which  mark  with  their 
imperishable  ruins  the  devious  course  of  European 
thought,  I  must  not  be  understood  as  suggesting  that 
on  that  account  these  lack  either  value  or  interest. 
All  I  say  is,  that  their  interest  is  not  of  a  kind  which 
brings  them  properly  within  the  scope  of  these  Notes. 
Whatever  be  the  nature  or  amount  of  our  debt  to 
the  great  metaphysicians  of  the  past,  unless  here  and 
now  we  go  to  them  not  merely  for  stray  arguments 
on  this  or  that  question,  but  for  a  reasoned  scheme 
of  knowledq-e  which  shall  include  as  elements  our 
own  actual  beliefs,  their  theories  are  not,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  present  discussion,  any  concern  of  ours. 

Now,  of  how  many  systems,  outside  the  two  that 
have  already  been  touched  on,  can  this  even  plausi- 
bly be  asserted  ?  Run  over  in  memory  some  of  the 
most  important.  Men  value  Plato  for  his  imagina- 
tion, for  the  genius  with  which  he  hazarded  solutions 
of  the  secular  problems  which  perplex  mankind,  for 
the  finished  art  of  his  dialogue,  for  the  exquisite 
beauty  of  his  style.  But  even  if  it  could  be  said — 
which  it  cannot — that  he  left  a  system,  could  it  be 
described  as  a  system  which,  as  such,  has  any 
effectual  vitality?  It  would  be  difficult,  perhaps 
impossible,  to  sum  up  our  debts  to  Aristotle.  But 
assuredly  they  do  not  include  a  tenable  theory  of  the 
universe.     The  Stoic  scheme  of  life  may  still   touch 


i53  PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM 

our  imagination  ;  but  who  takes  any  interest  in  their 
metaphysics  ?  Who  cares  for  their  Soul  of  the  world, 
the  periodic  conflagrations,  and  the  recurring  cycles 
of  mundane  events?  The  Neo-Platonists  were 
mystics ;  and  mysticism  is,  as  I  suppose,  an  undying 
element  in  human  thought.  But  who  is  concerned 
about  their  hierarchy  of  beings  connecting  through 
infinite  gradations  the  Absolute  at  one  end  of  the 
scale  with  Matter  at  the  other  ? 

These,  however,  it  may  be  said,  were  systems 
belonging  to  the  ancient  world  ;  and  mankind  have 
not  busied  themselves  with  speculation  for  these  two 
thousand  years  and  more  without  making  some 
advance.  I  agree  ;  but  in  the  matter  of  providing 
us  with  a  philosophy — with  a  reasoned  system  of 
knowledge — has  this  advance  been  as  yet  substantial  ? 
If  the  ancients  fail  us,  do  we,  indeed,  fare  much  better 
with  the  moderns  ?  Are  the  metaphysics  of  Des- 
cartes more  living  than  his  physics  ?  Do  his  two 
substances  or  kinds  of  substance,  or  the  single  sub- 
stance of  Spinoza,  or  the  innumerable  substances  of 
Leibnitz,  satisfy  the  searcher  after  truth  ?  From  the 
modern  English  form  of  the  empiricism  which  domi- 
nated the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  idealism  which 
disputes  its  supremacy  in  the  nineteenth,  I  have 
already  ventured  to  express  a  reasoned  dissent.  Are 
we,  then,  to  look  to  such  schemes  as  Schopenhauer's 
philosophy  of  Will,  and  Hartmann's  philosophy  of 
the  Unconscious,  to  supply  us  with  the  philosophical 
metaphysics  of  which  we  are  in  need  ?     They  have 


PHILOSOPHY   AND    RATIONALISM  159 

admirers  in  this  country,  but  hardly  convinced  ad- 
herents. Of  those  who  are  quite  prepared  to  accept 
their  pessimism,  how  many  are  there  who  take  seri- 
ously its  metaphysical  foundation  ? 

In  truth  there  are  but  three  points  of  view  from 
which  it  seems  worth  while  to  make  ourselves 
acquainted  with  the  growth,  culmination,  and  decay 
of  the  various  metaphysical  dynasties  which  have 
successively  struggled  for  supremacy  in  the  world  of 
ideas.  The  first  is  purely  historical.  Thus  regarded, 
metaphysical  systems  are  simply  significant  pheno- 
mena in  the  general  history  of  man  :  symptoms  of 
his  spiritual  condition,  aids,  it  may  be,  to  his 
.spiritual  growth.  The  historian  of  philosophy,  as 
such,  is  therefore  quite  unconcerned  with  the  truth 
or  falsehood  of  the  opinions  whose  evolution  he  is 
expounding.  His  business  is  merely  to  account  for 
their  existence,  to  exhibit  them  in  their  proper 
historical  setting,  and  to  explain  their  character  and 
their  consequences.  But,  so  considered,  I  find  it 
difficult  to  believe  that  these  opinions  have  been 
elements  of  primary  importance  to  the  advancement 
of  mankind.  All  ages,  indeed,  which  have  exhibited 
intellectual  vigour  have  cultivated  one  or  more 
characteristic  systems  of  metaphysics  ;  but  rarely,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  have  these  systems  been  in  their 
turn  important  elements  in  determining  the  cha- 
racter of  the  periods  in  which  they  flourished.  They 
have  been  effects  rather  than  causes  ;  indications  of 
the  mood  in  which,  under  the  special  stress  of  their 


160  PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM 

time  and  circumstance,  the  most  detached  intellects 
have  faced  the  eternal  problems  of  humanity  ;  proofs 
of  the  unresting  desire  of  mankind  to  bring  their 
beliefs  into  harmony  with  speculative  reason.  But 
the  beliefs  have  almost  always  preceded  the 
speculations ;  they  have  frequently  survived  them  ; 
and  I  cannot  convince  myself  that  among  the  just 
titles  to  our  consideration  sometimes  put  forward  on 
behalf  of  metaphysic  we  may  count  her  claim  to 
rank  as  a  powerful  instrument  of  progress. 

No  doubt — and  here  we  come  to  the  second 
point  of  view  alluded  to  above — the  constant  discus- 
sion of  these  high  problems  has  not  been  barren 
merely  because  it  has  not  as  yet  led  to  their 
solution.  Philosophers  have  mined  for  truth  in 
many  directions,  and  the  whole  field  of  speculation 
seems  cumbered  with  the  dross  and  lumber  of  their 
abandoned  workings.  But  though  they  have  not 
found  the  ore  they  sought  for,  it  does  not  therefore 
follow  that  their  labours  have  been  wholly  vain.  It 
is  something  to  have  realised  what  not  to  do.  It  is 
something  to  discover  the  causes  of  failure,  even 
though  we  do  not  attain  any  positive  knowledge  or 
the  conditions  of  success.  It  is  an  even  more 
substantial  gain  to  have  done  something  towards 
disengaging  the  questions  which  require  to  be  dealt 
with,  and  towards  creating  and  perfecting  the 
terminology  without  which  they  can  scarcely  be 
adequately  stated,  much  less  satisfactorily  answered. 

And   there  is  yet    a   third  point  of  view  from 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM  161 

which  past  metaphysical  speculations  are  seen  to 
retain  their  value,  a  point  of  view  which  may  be 
called  (not,  I  admit,  without  some  little  violence  to 
accustomed  usage)  the  (esthetic.  Because  reason- 
ing occupies  so  large  a  place  in  metaphysical 
treatises  we  are  apt  to  forget  that,  as  a  rule,  these  are 
works  of  imagination  at  least  as  much  as  of  reason.  / 
Metaphysicians  are  poets  who  deal  with  the  abstract 
and  the  super-sensible  instead  of  the  concrete  and 
the  sensuous.  To  be  sure  they  are  poets  with  a 
difference.  Their  appropriate  and  characteristic 
gifts  are  not  the  vivid  realisation  of  that  which  is 
given  in  experience  ;  their  genius  does  not  prolong, 
as  it  were,  and  echo  through  the  remotest  regions  of 
feeling  the  shock  of  some  definite  emotion  ;  they 
create  for  us  no  new  worlds  of  things  and  persons  ; 
nor  can  it  be  often  said  that  the  product  of  their 
labours  is  a  thing  of  beauty.  Their  style,  it  must 
be  owned,  has  not  always  been  their  strong  point ; 
and  even  when  it  is  otherwise,  mere  graces  of  pre- 
sentation are  but  unessential  accidents  of  their  work. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  they  can  only  be  justly 
estimated  by  those  who  are  prepared  to  apply 
to  them  a  quasi-aesthetic  standard ;  some  other 
standard,  at  all  events,  than  that  supplied  by  purely 
argumentative  comment.  It  may  perhaps  be  shown 
that  their  metaphysical  constructions  are  faulty,  that 
their  demonstrations  do  not  convince,  that  their 
most  permanent  dialectical  triumphs  have  fallen  to 
them  in  the  paths  of  criticism  and  negation.     Yet 

M 


162  PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM 

even  then  the  last  word  will  not  have  been  said. 
For  claims  to  our  admiration  will  still  be  found  in 
their  brilliant  intuitions,  in  the  subtlety  of  their 
occasional  arguments,  in  their  passion  for  the 
Universal  and  the  Abiding,  in  their  steadfast  faith 
in  the  rationality  of  the  world,  in  the  devotion  with 
which  they  are  content  to  live  and  move  in  realms 
of  abstract  speculation  too  far  removed  from 
ordinary  interests  to  excite  the  slightest  genuine 
sympathy  in  the  breasts  even  of  the  cultivated  few. 
If,  therefore,  we  are  for  a  moment  tempted,  as  surely 
may  sometimes  happen,  to  contemplate  with  re- 
spectful astonishment  some  of  the  arguments  which 
the  illustrious  authors  of  the  great  historic  systems 
have  thought  good  enough  to  support  their  case,  let 
it  be  remembered  that  for  minds  in  which  the  critical 
intellect  holds  undisputed  sway,  the  creation  of  any 
system  whatever  in  the  present  state  of  our  know- 
ledge is,  perhaps,  impossible.  Only  those  in  whom 
powers  of  philosophical  criticism  are  balanced,  or 
more  than  balanced,  by  powers  of  metaphysical 
imagination  can  be  fitted  to  undertake  the  task. 
Though  even  to  them  success  may  be  impossible,  at 
least  the  illusion  of  success  is  permitted  ;  and  but 
for  them  mankind  would  fall  away  in  hopeless  dis- 
couragement from  its  highest  intellectual  ideal,  and 
speculation  would  be  strangled  at  its  birth. 

To  some,  indeed,  it  may  appear  as  if  the  loss 
would  not,  after  all,  be  great.  What  use,  they  may 
exclaim,  can  be  found  for  any  system  which  will  not 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM  163 

stand  critical  examination  ?  What  value  has  reason- 
ing which  does  not  satisfy  the  reason  ?  How  can 
we  know  that  these  abstruse  investigations  supply 
even  a  fragmentary  contribution  towards  a  final 
philosophy,  until  we  are  able  to  look  back  upon  them 
from  the  perhaps  inaccessible  vantage  ground  to  be 
supplied  by  this  final  philosophy  itself?  To  such 
questionings  I  do  not  profess  to  find  a  completely 
satisfactory  answer.  Yet  even  those  who  feel  in- 
clined to  rate  extant  speculations  at  the  lowest  value 
will  perhaps  admit  that  metaphysics,  like  art,  give 
us  something  we  could  ill  afford  to  spare.  Art  may 
not  have  provided  us  with  any  reflection  of  immortal 
beauty  ;  nor  metaphysics  have  brought  us  into  com- 
munion with  eternal  truth.  Yet  both  may  have 
historic  value.  In  speculation,  as  in  art,  we  find 
a  vivid  expression  of  the  changeful  mind  of  man. 
and  the  interest  of  both,  perhaps,  is  at  its  highest 
when  they  most  clearly  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  age 
which  gave  them  birth,  when  they  are  most  racy  of 
the  soil  from  which  they  sprung. 


To  this  point  I  may  have  to  return.  But  my 
more  immediate  business  is  to  bring  home  to  the 
reader's  mind  the  consequences  which  may  be  drawn 
from  the  admission — supposing  him  disposed  to  make 
it — that  we  have  at  the  present  time  neither  a 
satisfactory  system  of  metaphysics  nor  a  satisfactory 
theory  of  science.     Many  persons — perhaps  it  would 


1 64  PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM 

not  be  too  much  to  say  most  persons,  are  prepared 
contentedly  to  accept  the  first  of  these  propositions  ; 
but  it  is  on  the  truth  of  the  second  that  I  desire  to 
lay  at  least  an  equal  stress.  The  first  man  one  meets 
in  the  street  thinks  it  quite  natural  to  accept  the 
opinion  that  sense-experience  is  the  only  source  ot 
rational  conviction  ;  that  everything  to  which  it  does 
not  testify  is  untrue,  or,  if  true,  falls  within  the 
domain,  not  of  knowledge,  but  of  faith.  Yet  the 
criticism  of  knowledge  indicated  in  the  two  preced- 
ing chapters  shows  how  one-sided  is  such  a  view. 
If  faith  be  provisionally  defined  as  conviction  apart 
from  or  in  excess  of  proof,  then  it  is  upon  faith  that 
the  maxims  of  daily  life,  not  less  than  the  loftiest 
creeds  and  the  most  far-reaching  discoveries,  must 
ultimately  lean.  The  ground  on  which  constant 
habit  and  inherited  predispositions  enable  us  to 
tread  with  a  step  so  easy  and  so  assured,  is  seen  on 
examination  to  be  not  less  hollow  beneath  our  feet 
than  the  dim  and  unfamiliar  regions  which  lie 
beyond.  Certitude  is  found  to  be  the  child,  not  of 
Reason,  but  of  Custom  ;  and  if  we  are  less  perplexed 
about  the  beliefs  on  which  we  are  hourly  called  upon 
to  act  than  about  those  which  do  not  touch  so  closely 
our  obvious  and  immediate  needs,  it  is  not  because 
the  questions  suggested  by  the  former  are  easier  to 
answer,  but  because  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  are  much 
less  inclined  to  ask  them. 

Now,  if  this  be  true,  it  is  plainly  a  fact  of  capital 
importance.    It  must  revolutionise  our  whole  attitude 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM  165 

towards  the  problems  presented  to  us  by  science, 
ethics,  and  theology.  It  must  destroy  the  ordinary 
tests  and  standards  whereby  we  measure  essential 
truth.  In  particular,  it  requires  us  to  see  what  is 
commonly,  if  rather  absurdly,  called  the  conflict 
between  religion  and  science  in  a  wholly  new 
aspect.  We  can  no  longer  be  content  with  the 
simple  view,  once  universally  accepted,  that  when- 
ever any  discrepancy,  real  or  supposed,  occurs  be- 
tween the  two,  science  must  be  rejected  as  heretical ; 
nor  with  the  equally  simple  view,  to  which  the 
former  has  long  given  place,  that  every  theological 
statement,  if  unsupported  by  science,  is  doubtful ;  if 
inconsistent  with  science,  is  false.  Opinions  like ' 
these  are  evidently  tolerable  only  on  the  hypo- 
thesis that  we  are  in  possession  of  a  body  of 
doctrine  which  is  not  only  itself  philosophically 
established,  but  to  whose  canons  of  proof  all  other 
doctrines  are  bound  to  conform.  But  if  there  is 
no  such  body  of  doctrine,  what  then  ?  Are  we  ar- 
bitrarily to  erect  one  department  of  belief  into  a 
law-giver  for  all  the  others  ?  Are  we  to  say  that 
though  no  scheme  of  knowledge  exists,  certain  in  its 
first  principles,  and  coherent  in  its  elaborated  con- 
clusions, yet  that  from  among  the  provisional 
schemes  which  we  are  inclined  practically  to  accept 
one  is  to  be  selected  at  random,  within  whose  limits, 
and  there  alone,  the  spirit  of  man  may  range  in  con- 
fident security  ? 

Such  a  position  is  speculatively  untenable.      It 


1 66  PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM 

involves  a  use  of  the  Canon  of  Consistency  not 
justified  by  any  philosophy  ;  and  as  it  is  indefensible 
in  theory,  so  it  is  injurious  in  practice.  For,  in 
truth,  though  the  contented  acquiescence  in  in- 
consistency is  the  abandonment  of  the  philosophic 
quest,  the  determination  to  obtain  consistency  at  all 
costs  has  been  the  prolific  parent  of  many  intel- 
lectual narrownesses  and  many  frigid  bigotries.  It 
has  shown  itself  in  various  shapes ;  it  has  stifled 
and  stunted  the  free  movement  of  thought  in 
different  ages  and  diverse  schools  of  speculation  ; 
its  unhappy  effects  may  be  traced  in  much  theology 
which  professes  to  be  orthodox,  in  much  criticism 
which  delights  to  be  heterodox.  It  is,  moreover, 
the  characteristic  note  of  a  not  inconsiderable  class 
of  intelligences  who  conceive  themselves  to  be 
specially  reasonable  because  they  are  constantly 
employed  in  reasoning,  and  who  can  find  no  better 
method  of  advancing  the  cause  of  knowledge  than 
to  press  to  their  extreme  logical  conclusions  princi- 
ples of  which,  perhaps,  the  best  that  can  be  said  is 
that  they  contain,  as  it  were  in  solution,  some 
element  of  truth  which  no  reagents  at  our  command 
will  as  yet  permit  us  to  isolate. 

in 

That  I   am   here    attacking   no   imaginary  evil 

will,  I  think,  be  evident  to  any  reader  who  recalls 

the  general  trend  of  educated  opinion  during  the 

last  three  centuries.      It  is,  of  course,  true  that  in 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  RATIONALISM  167 

dealing  with  so  vague  and  loosely  outlined  an 
object  as  '  educated  opinion '  we  must  beware  of 
attributing  to  large  masses  of  men  the  acceptance 
of  elaborate  and  definitely  articulated  systems. 
Systems  are,  and  must  be,  for  the  few.  The 
majority  of  mankind  are  content  with  a  mood  or 
temper  of  thought,  an  impulse  not  fully  reasoned 
out,  a  habit  guiding  them  to  the  acceptance  and 
assimilation  of  some  opinions  and  the  rejection  of 
others,  which  acts  almost  as  automatically  as  the 
processes  of  physical  digestion.  Behind  these  half- 
realised  motives,  and  in  closest  association  with 
them,  may  sometimes,  no  doubt,  be  found  a  '  theory 
of  things '  which  is  their  logical  and  explicit  ex- 
pression. But  it  is  certainly  not  necessary,  and 
perhaps  not  usual,  that  this  theory  should  be  clearly 
formulated  by  those  who  seem  to  obey  it.  Nor  for 
our  present  purpose  is  there  any  important  dis- 
tinction to  be  made  between  the  case  of  the  few 
who  find  a  reason  for  their  habitual  judgments,  and 
that  of  the  many  who  do  not. 

Keeping  this  caution  in  mind,  we  may  consider 
without  risk  of  misconception  an  illustration  of  the 
misuse  of  the  Canon  of  Consistency  provided  for  us 
by  the  theory  corresponding  to  that  tendency  of 
thought  which  has  played  so  large  a  part  in  the 
development  of  the  modern  mind,  and  which  is 
commonly  known  as  Rationalism.  Now,  what  is 
Rationalism  ?  Some  may  be  disposed  to  reply  that 
it  is  the  free  and  unfettered  application  of  human 


168  PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM 

intelligence  to  the  problems  of  life  and  of  the  world  ; 
the  unprejudiced  examination  of  every  question  in 
the  dry  light  of  emancipated  reason.  This  may  be 
a  very  good  account  of  a  particular  intellectual 
-  ideal ;  an  ideal  which  has  been  sought  after  at  many 
'  periods  of  the  world's  history,  although  assuredly  it 
has  been  attained  in  none.  Usage,  however, 
permits  and  even  encourages  us  to  employ  the  word 
in  a  much  more  restricted  sense  :  as  indicating  a 
special  form  of  that  reaction  against  dogmatic 
theology  which  may  be  said  with  sufficient  accuracy 
to  have  taken  its  rise  in  the  Renaissance,  to  have 
increased  in  force  and  volume  during  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  and  to  have 
reached  its  most  complete  expression  in  the 
Naturalism  which  occupied  our  attention  through 
the  first  portion  of  these  Notes.  A  reaction  of  some 
sort  was  no  doubt  inevitable.  Men  found  them- 
selves in  a  world  where  Literature,  Art,  and  Science 
were  enormously  extending  the  range  of  human 
interests ;  in  which  Religion  seemed  approach- 
able only  through  the  languishing  controversies 
which  had  burnt  with  so  fierce  a  flame  during  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries ;  in  which 
accepted  theological  methods  had  their  roots  in  a 
very  different  period  of  intellectual  growth,  and  were 
ceasing  to  be  appropriate  to  the  new  developments. 
At  such  a  time  there  was,  undoubtedly,  an  important, 
and  even  a  necessary,  work  to  be  done.  The  mind 
of  man  cannot,  any  more  than  the  body,  vary  in  one 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   RATIONALISM  169 

direction  alone.  The  whole  organism  suffers,  or 
gains,  from  the  change,  and  every  faculty  and  every 
limb  must  be  somewhat  modified  in  order  success- 
fully to  meet  the  new  demands  thrown  upon  it 
by  the  altered  balance  of  the  remainder.  So  is  it 
also  in  matters  intellectual.  It  is  hopeless  to  expect 
that  new  truths  and  new  methods  of  investigation 
can  be  acquired  without  the  old  truths  requiring  to 
be  in  some  respects  reconsidered  and  restated, 
surveyed  under  a  new  aspect,  measured,  perhaps,  by 
a  different  standard.  Much  had,  therefore,  to  be 
modified,  and  something — let  us  admit  it — had  to  be 
destroyed.  The  new  system  could  hardly  produce 
its  best  results  until  the  refuse  left  by  the  old 
system  had  been  removed  ;  until  the  waste  products 
were  eliminated  which,  like  those  of  a  muscle  too 
long  exercised,  poisoned  and  clogged  the  tissues  in 
which  they  had  once  played  the  part  of  living  and 
effective  elements. 

The  world,  then,  required  enlightenment,  and  the 
rationalists  proceeded  after  their  own  fashion  to 
enlighten  it.  Unfortunately,  however,  their  whole 
procedure  was  tainted  by  an  original  vice  of  method 
which  made  it  impossible  to  carry  on  the  honourable, 
if  comparatively  humble,  work  of  clearance  and 
purification  without,  at  the  same  time,  destroying 
much  that  ought  properly  to  have  been  preserved. 
They  were  not  content  with  protesting  against 
practical  abuses,  with  vindicating  the  freedom  of 
science  from  theological  bondage,  with  criticising  the 


iyo  PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM 

defects  and  explaining  the  limitations  of  the  some- 
what cumbrous  and  antiquated  apparatus  of  prevalent 
theological  controversy — apparatus,  no  doubt,  much 
better  contrived  for  dealing  with  the  points  on  which 
theologians  differ  than  for  defending  against  a 
common  enemy  the  points  on  which  theologians  are 
for  the  most  part  agreed.  These  things,  no  doubt, 
to  the  best  of  their  power,  they  did  ;  and  to  the 
doing  of  them  no  objection  need  be  raised.  The 
objection  is  to  the  principle  on  which  the  things 
were  done.  That  principle  appeared  under  many 
disguises,  and  was  called  by  many  names.  Some- 
times describing  itself  as  Common-sense,  sometimes 
as  Science,  sometimes  as  Enlightenment,  with  infinite 
varieties  of  application  and  great  diversity  of  doctrine, 
Rationalism  consisted  essentially  in  the  application, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  of  one  great  method  to 
the  decision  of  every  controversy,  to  the  moulding 
of  every  creed.  Did  a  belief  square  with  a  view  of 
the  universe  based  exclusively  upon  the  prevalent 
mode  of  interpreting  sense-perception  ?  If  so,  it 
might  survive.  Did  it  clash  with  such  mode,  or  lie 
beyond  it  ?  It  was  superstitious  ;  it  was  un- 
scientific ;  it  was  ridiculous  ;  it  was  incredible.  Was 
it  neither  in  harmony  with  nor  antagonistic  to  such 
a  view,  but  simply  beside  it  ?  It  might  live  on  until 
it  became  atrophied  from  lack  of  use,  a  mere  sur- 
vival of  a  dead  past. 

These  judgments  were  not,  as  a  rule,  supported 
by  any  very  profound  arguments.     Rationalists  as 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM  171 

such  are  not  philosophers.  They  are  not  pan- 
theists nor  speculative  materialists.  They  ignore 
if  they  do  not  despise  metaphysics,  and  in  practice 
eschew  the  search  for  first  principles.  But  they 
judge  as  men  of  the  world,  equally  reluctant  to 
criticise  too  closely  methods  which  succeed  so 
admirably  in  everyday  affairs,  or  to  admit  that  any 
other  methods  can  possibly  be  required  by  men  of 
sense. 

Of  course,  a  principle  so  loosely  conceived  has 
led  at  different  times  and  in  different  stages  of 
knowledge  to  very  different  results.  Through  the 
greater  portion  of  the  world's  history  the  '  ordinary 
mode  of  interpreting  sense-perception '  has  been 
perfectly  consistent  with  so-called  '  supernatural ' 
phenomena.  It  may  become  so  again.  And  if 
during  the  rationalising  centuries  this  has  not  been 
the  case,  it  is  because  the  interpretation  of  sense- 
perceptions  has  during  that  period  been  more  and 
more  governed  by  that  Naturalistic  theory  of  the 
world  to  which  it  has  been  steadily  gravitating.  It 
is  true  that  the  process  of  eliminating  incongruous 
beliefs  has  been  gradual.  The  general  body  of 
rationalisers  have  been  slow  to  see  and  reluctant  to 
accept  the  full  consequences  of  their  own  principles. 
The  assumption  that  the  kind  of  '  experience ' 
which  gave  us  natural  science  was  the  sole  basis  of 
knowledge  did  not  at  first,  or  necessarily,  carry  with 
it  the  further  inference  that  nothing  deserved  to  be 
called   knowledge  which  did    not  come  within  the 


1 72  PHILOSOPHY  AND  RATIONALISM 

circle  of  the  natural  sciences.  But  the  inference 
was  practically,  if  not  logically,  inevitable.  Theism, 
Deism,  Design,  Soul,  Conscience,  Morality,  Immor- 
tality, Freedom,  Beauty — these  and  cognate  words 
associated  with  the  memory  of  great  controversies 
mark  the  points  at  which  rationalists  who  are 
not  also  naturalists  have  sought  to  come  to  terms 
with  the  rationalising  spirit,  or  to  make  a  stand 
against  its  onward  movement.  It  has  been  in  vain. 
At  some  places  the  fortunes  of  battle  hung  long  in 
the  balance ;  at  others  the  issues  may  yet  seem 
doubtful.  Those  who  have  given  up  God  can  still 
make  a  fight  for  conscience ;  those  who  have 
abandoned  moral  responsibility  may  still  console 
themselves  with  artistic  beauty.  But,  to  my  thinking, 
at  least,  the  struggle  can  have  but  one  termination. 
Habit  and  education  may  delay  the  inevitable  con- 
clusion ;  they  cannot  in  the  end  avert  it.  For  these 
ideas  are  no  native  growth  of  a  rationalist  epoch, 
strong  in  their  harmony  with  contemporary  moods 
of  thought.  They  are  the  products  of  a  different 
age,  survivals  from,  as  some  think,  a  decaying 
system.  And  howsoever  stubbornly  they  may 
resist  the  influences  of  an  alien  environment,  if 
this  undergoes  no  change,  in  the  end  they  must 
surely  perish. 

Naturalism,  then,  the  naturalism  whose  practical 
consequences  have  already  occupied  us  so  long,  is 
nothing  more  than  the  result  of  rationalising 
methods    applied   with    pitiless   consistency   to    the 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM  173 

whole  circuit  of  belief.  It  is  the  completed  product 
of  rationalism,  the  final  outcome  of  using  the 
1  current  methods  of  interpreting  sense-perception ' 
as  the  universal  instrument  for  determining  the 
nature  and  fixing  the  limits  of  human  knowledge. 
What  wealth  of  spiritual  possession  this  creed 
requires  us  to  give  up  I  have  already  explained. 
What,  then,  does  it  promise  us  in  exchange?  It 
promises  us  Consistency.  Religion  may  perish  at 
its  touch,  it  may  strip  Virtue  and  Beauty  of  their 
most  precious  attributes  ;  but  in  exchange  it 
promises  us  Consistency.  True,  the  promise  is  in 
any  circumstances  but  imperfectly  kept.  This  creed, 
which  so  arrogantly  requires  that  everything  is  to 
be  made  consistent  with  it,  is  not,  as  we  have  seen, 
consistent  with  itself.  The  humblest  attempts  to 
co-ordinate  and  to  justify  the  assumptions  on  which 
it  proceeds  with  such  unquestioning  confidence 
bring  to  light  speculative  perplexities  and  contra- 
dictions whose  very  existence  seems  unsuspected, 
whose  solution  is  not  even  attempted.  But  even 
were  it  otherwise  we  should  still  be  bound  to  pro- 
test against  the  assumption  that  consistency  is  a 
necessity  of  the  intellectual  life,  to  be  purchased,  if 
need  be,  at  famine  prices.  It  is  a  valuable 
commodity,  but  it  may  be  bought  too  dear.  No 
doubt  a  principal  function  of  Reason  is  to  smooth 
away  contradictions,  to  knock  off  corners,  and  to  fit, 
as  far  as  may  be,  each  separate  belief  into  its  proper 
place   within    the    framework   of    one    harmonious 


174  PHILOSOPHY  AND   RATIONALISM 

creed.  No  doubt,  also,  it  is  impossible  to  regard 
any  theory  which  lacks  self-consistency  as  either 
satisfactory  or  final.  But  principles  going  far 
beyond  admissions  like  these  are  required  to  compel 
us  to  acquiesce  in  rationalising  methods  and 
naturalistic  results,  to  the  destruction  of  every  form 
of  belief  with  which  they  do  not  happen  to  agree. 
Before  such  terms  of  surrender  are  accepted,  at 
least  the  victorious  system  must  show,  not  merely 
that  its  various  parts  are  consistent  with  each  other, 
but  that  the  whole  is  authenticated  by  Reason. 
Until  this  task  is  accomplished  (and  how  far  at 
present  it  is  from  being  accomplished  in  the  case  of 
naturalism  the  reader  knows)  it  would  be  an  act  of 
mere  blundering  Unreason  to  set  up  as  the  universal 
standard  of  belief  a  theory  of  things  which  itself 
stands  in  so  great  need  of  rational  defence,  or  to 
make  a  reckless  and  unthinking  application  of  the 
canon  of  consistency  when  our  knowledge  of  first 
principles  is  so  manifestly  defective. 


•75 


CHAPTER   IV 

RATIONALIST    ORTHODOXY 

At  this  point,  however,  it  may  perhaps  occur  to  the 
reader  that  I  have  somewhat  too  lightly  assumed 
that  Rationalism  is  the  high-road  to  Naturalism. 
Why,  it  may  be  asked,  is  there  any  insuperable 
difficulty  in  framing  another  scheme  of  belief  which 
shall  permanently  satisfy  the  requirements  of  con- 
sistency, and  yet  harmonise  in  its  general  procedure 
with  the  rationalising  spirit  ?  Why  are  we  to  as- 
sume that  the  extreme  type  of  this  mode  of  thought 
is  the  only  stable  type  ?  Such  doubts  would  be  the 
more  legitimate  because  there  is  actually  in  existence 
a  scheme  of  great  historic  importance,  and  some 
present  interest,  by  which  it  has  been  sought  to  run 
modern  Science  and  Theology  together  into  a  single 
coherent  and  self-sufficient  system  of  thought,  by 
the  simple  process  of  making  Science  supply  all  the 
premises  on  which  theological  conclusions  are  after- 
wards based.  ■  If  this  device  be  really  adequate,  no 
doubt  much  of  what  was  said  in  the  last  chapter, 
and  much  that  will  have  to  be  said  in  future  chapters, 
becomes  superfluous.      If  '  our  ordinary  method  of 


176  RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY 

interpreting  sense-perception,'  which  gives  us 
Science,  is  able  also  to  supply  us  with  Theology, 
then  at  least,  whether  it  be  philosophically  valid  or 
not,  the  majority  of  mankind  may  very  well  rest 
content  with  it  until  philosophers  come  to  some 
agreement  about  a  better.  If  it  does  not  satisfy  the 
philosophic  critic,  it  will  probably  satisfy  everyone 
else  ;  and  even  the  philosophic  critic  need  not  quarrel 
with  its  practical  outcome. 

The  system  by  which  these  results  are  thought 
to  be  attained  pursues  the  following  method.  It 
divides  Theology  into  Natural  and  Revealed. 
Natural  Theology  expounds  the  theological  beliefs 
which  may  be  arrived  at  by  a  consideration  of  the 
general  course  of  Nature  as  this  is  explained  to  us 
by  Science.  It  dwells  principally  upon  the  number- 
less examples  of  adaptation  in  the  organic  world, 
which  apparently  display  the  most  marvellous  in- 
dications of  ingenious  contrivance,  and  the  nicest 
adjustment  of  means  to  ends.  From  facts  like 
these  it  is  inferred  that  Nature  has  an  intelligent 
and  a  powerful  Creator.  From  the  further  fact  that 
these  adjustments  and  contrivances  are  in  a  large 
number  of  cases  designed  for  the  interests  of  beings 
capable  of  pleasure  and  pain,  it  is  inferred  that  the 
Creator  is  not  only  intelligent  and  powerful,  but  also 
benevolent ;  and  the  inquiring  mind  is  then  sup- 
posed to  be  sufficiently  prepared  to  consider  without 
prejudice  the  evidence  for  there  having  been  a 
special  Revelation  by  which  further  truths  may  have 


RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY  177 

been  imparted,  not  otherwise  accessible  to  our  un- 
assisted powers  of  speculation. 

The  evidences  of  Revealed  Religion  are  not 
drawn,  like  those  of  Natural  Religion,  from  general 
laws  and  widely  disseminated  particulars  ;  but  they 
profess  none  the  less  to  be  solely  based  upon  facts 
which,  according  to  the  classification  I  have  adhered 
to  throughout  these  Notes,  belong  to  the  scientific 
order.  According  to  this  theory,  the  logical  burden 
of  the  entire  theological  structure  is  thrown  upon 
the  evidence  for  certain  events  which  took  place 
long  ago,  and  principally  in  a  small  district  to  the 
east  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  occurrence  of  which 
it  is  sought  to  prove  by  the  ordinary  methods  of 
historical  investigation,  and  by  these  alone — unless, 
indeed,  we  are  to  regard  as  an  important  ally  the 
aforementioned  presumption  supplied  by  Natural 
Theology.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  immediate 
reason  for  accepting  the  beliefs  of  Revealed  Religion 
is  that  the  religion  is  revealed.  But  it  is  thought  to 
be  revealed  because  it  was  promulgated  by  teachers 
who  were  inspired  ;  the  teachers  are  thought  to 
have  been  inspired  because  they  worked  miracles  ; 
and  they  are  thought  to  have  worked  miracles 
because  there  is  historical  evidence  of  the  fact, 
which  it  is  supposed  would  be  more  than  sufficient 
to  produce  conviction  in  any  unbiassed  mind. 

Now  it  must  be  conceded  that  if  this  general 
train  of  reasoning  be  assumed  to  cover  the  whole 
ground  of  '  Christian  Evidences,'  then,  whether  it 

N 


1 78  RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY 

be  conclusive  or  inconclusive,  it  does  at  least  attain 
the  desideratum  of  connecting  Science  on  the  one 
hand,  Religion — '  Natural '  and  '  Revealed ' — on  the 
other,  into  one  single  scheme  of  interconnected  pro- 
positions.. But  it  attains  it  by  making  Theology  in 
form  a  mere  annex  or  appendix  to  Science  ;  a  mere 
footnote  to  history  ;  a  series  of  conclusions  inferred 
from  data  which  have  been  arrived  at  by  precisely 
the  same  methods  as  those  which  enable  us  to  pro- 
nounce upon  the  probability  of  any  other  events  in 
the  past  history  of  man,  or  of  the  world  in  which  he 
lives.  We  are  no  longer  dealing  with  a  creed 
whose  real  premises  lie  deep  in  the  nature  of 
things.  It  is  no  question  of  metaphysical  specula- 
tion, moral  intuition,  or  mystical  ecstasy  with  which 
we  are  concerned.  We  are  asked  to  believe  the 
Universe  to  have  been  designed  by  a  Deity  for  the 
same  sort  of  reason  that  we  believe  Canterbury 
Cathedral  to  have  been  designed  by  an  architect ; 
and  to  believe  in  the  events  narrated  in  the  Gospels 
for  the  same  sort  of  reason  that  we  believe  in  the 
murder  of  Thomas  a  Becket. 

Now  I  am  not  concerned  to  maintain  that  these 
arguments  are  bad  ;  on  the  contrary,  my  personal 
opinion  is  that,  as  far  as  they  go,  they  are  good.  The 
argument,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  an  argument, 
from  design,  in  some  shape  or  other,  will  always  have 
value  ;  while  the  argument  from  history  must 
always  form  a  part  of  the  evidence  for  any  histori- 
cal religion.     The  first  will,  in  my  opinion,  survive 


RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY  179 

any  inferences  from  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection  ; 
the  second  will  survive  the  consequences  of  critical 
assaults.  But  more  than  this  is  desirable ;  more 
than  this  is,  indeed,  necessary.  For  however  good 
arguments  of  this  sort  are,  or  may  be  made,  they  are 
not  equal  by  themselves  to  the  task  of  upsetting  so 
massive  an  obstacle  as  developed  Naturalism.  They 
have  not,  as  it  were,  sufficient  intrinsic  energy  to 
effect  so  great  a  change.  They  may  not  be  ill 
directed,  but  they  lack  momentum.  They  may  not 
be  technically  defective,  but  they  are  assuredly 
practically  inadequate. 

To  many  this  may  appear  self-evident.  Those 
who  doubt  it  will,  I  think,  be  convinced  of  its  truth 
if  they  put  themselves  for  a  moment  in  the  position 
of  a  man  trained  on  the  strictest  principles  of 
Naturalism  ;  acquainted  with  the  general  methods 
and  results  of  Science ;  cognisant  of  the  general  course 
of  secular  human  history,  and  of  the  means  by  which 
the  critic  and  the  scholar  have  endeavoured  to  extort 
the  truth  from  the  records  of  the  past.  To  such  a 
man  the  growth  and  decay  of  great  religions,  the 
legends  of  wonders  worked  and  suffering  endured 
by  holy  men  in  many  ages  and  in  different  countries, 
are  familiar  facts — to  be  fitted  somehow  into  his 
general  scheme  of  knowledge.  They  are  phenomena 
to  be  explained  by  anthropology  and  sociology, 
instructive  examples  of  the  operation  of  natural  law 
at  a  particular  stage  of  human  development — this 
and  nothing  more. 

N2 


180  RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY 

Now  present  to  one  whose  mind  has  been  so 
prepared  and  disciplined,  first  this  account  of  Natural 
Religion,  and  then  this  version  of  the  evidences 
for  Revelation.  So  far  as  Natural  Religion  is  con- 
cerned he  will  probably  content  himself  with  saying, 
that  to  argue  from  the  universality  of  causation 
within  the  world  to  the  necessity  of  First  Cause 
outside  the  world  is  a  process  of  very  doubtful 
validity :  that  to  argue  from  the  character  of  the 
world  to  the  benevolence  of  its  Author  is  a  process 
more  doubtful  still :  but  that,  in  any  case,  we  need 
not  disturb  ourselves  about  matters  we  so  little 
understand,  inasmuch  as  the  Deity  thus  inferred,  if 
He  really  exists,  completed  the  only  task  which 
Natural  Religion  supposes  Him  to  have  undertaken 
when,  in  a  past  immeasurably  remote,  he  set  going 
the  machinery  of  causes  and  effects,  which  has  ever 
since  been  in  undisturbed  operation,  and  about 
which  alone  we  have  any  real  sources  of  information. 

Supposing,  however,  you  have  induced  your 
Naturalistic  philosopher  to  accept,  if  only  for  the 
sake  of  argument,  your  version  of  Natural  Religion, 
what  will  he  say  to  your  method  of  extracting  the 
proofs  of  Revealed  Religion  from  the  Gospel  his- 
tory ?  Explain  to  him  that  there  is  good  historic 
evidence  of  the  usual  sort  for  believing  that  for  one 
brief  interval  during  the  history  of  the  Universe, 
and  in  one  small  corner  of  this  planet,  the  con- 
tinuous chain  of  universal  causation  has  been 
broken  ;  that  in  an  insignificant  country  inhabited  by 


RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY  181 

an  unimportant  branch  of  the  Semitic  peoples  events 
are  alleged  to  have  taken  place  which,  if  they  really 
occurred,  at  once  turn  into  foolishness  the  whole 
theory  in  the  light  of  which  he  has  been  accustomed 
to  interpret  human  experience,  and  convey  to  us 
knowledge  which  no  mere  contemplation  of  the 
general  order  of  Nature  could  enable  us  even  dimly 
to  anticipate.  What  would  be  his  reply  ?  His  reply 
would  be,  nay,  is  (for  our  imaginary  interlocutor  has 
unnumbered  prototypes  in  the  world  about  us),  that 
questions  like  these  can  scarcely  be  settled  by  the 
mere  accumulation  of  historic  proofs.  Granting  all 
that  was  asked,  and  more,  perhaps,  than  ought  to 
be  conceded  ;  granting  that  the  evidence  for  these 
wonders  was  far  stronger  than  any  that  could  be 
produced  in  favour  of  the  apocryphal  miracles  which 
crowd  the  annals  of  every  people  ;  granting  even 
that  the  evidence  seemed  far  more  than  sufficient  to 
establish  any  incident,  however  strange,  which  does 
not  run  counter  to  the  recognised  course  of  Nature  ; 
what  then  ?  We  were  face  to  face  with  a  difficulty, 
no  doubt ;  but  the  interpretation  of  the  past  was 
necessarily  full  of  difficulties.  Conflicts  of  testimony 
with  antecedent  probability,  conflicts  of  different 
testimonies  with  each  other,  were  the  familiar  perplexi- 
ties of  the  historic  inquirer.  In  thousands  of  cases 
no  absolutely  satisfactory  solution  could  be  arrived 
at.  Possibly  the  Gospel  histories  were  among  these. 
Neither  the  theory  of  myths,  nor  the  theory  of  con- 
temporary fraud,  nor  the  theory  of  late  invention,  nor 


182  RATIONALIST   ORTHODOXY 

any  other  which  the  ingenuity  of  critics  could  devise, 
might  provide  a  perfectly  clean-cut  explanation  of 
the  phenomena.  But  at  least  it  might  be  said  with 
confidence  that  no  explanation  could  be  less  satis- 
factory than  one  which  required  us,  on  the  strength 
of  three  or  four  ancient  documents — at  the  best 
written  by  eye-witnesses  of  little  education  and  no 
scientific  knowledge,  at  the  worst  spurious  and  of 
no  authority — to  remodel  and  revolutionise  every 
principle  which  governs  us  with  an  unquestioned 
jurisdiction  in  our  judgments  on  the  Universe  at 
large. 

Thus,  slightly  modifying  Hume,  might  the  disciple 
of  Naturalism  reply.  And  as  against  the  rationalis- 
ing theologian,  is  not  his  answer  conclusive  ?  The 
former  has  borrowed  the  premises,  the  methods, 
and  all  the  positive  conclusions  of  Naturalism.  He 
advances  on  the  same  strategic  principles,  and  from 
the  same  base  of  operations.  And  though  he 
professes  by  these  means  to  have  overrun  a  whole 
continent  of  alien  conclusions  with  which  Naturalism 
will  have  nothing  to  do,  can  he  permanently  retain 
it?  Is  it  not  certain  that  the  huge  expanse  of  his 
theology,  attached  by  so  slender  a  tie  to  the  main 
system  of  which  it  is  intended  to  be  a  dependency, 
will  sooner  or  later  have  to  be  abandoned  ;  and  that 
the  weak  and  artificial  connection  which  has  been 
so  ingeniously  contrived  will  snap  at  the  first  strain 
to  which  it  shall  be  subjected  by  the  forces  either  of 
criticism  or  sentiment  ? 


PART    III 

SOME    CAUSES    OF   BELIEF 


CHAPTER   I 

CAUSES    OF    EXPERIENCE 

I 

So  far  the  results  at  which  we  have  arrived  may  be 
not  unfairly  described  as  purely  negative.  In  the 
rirst  part  of  these  Notes  I  endeavoured  to  show  that 
Naturalism  was  practically  insufficient.  In  the  first 
chapter  of  Part  II.  I  indicated  the  view  that 
it  was  speculatively  incoherent.  The  obvious  con- 
clusion was  therefore  drawn,  that  under  these 
circumstances  it  was  in  the  highest  degree  absurd 
to  employ  with  an  unthinking  rigour  the  canon  of 
consistency  as  if  Rationalism,  which  is  Naturalism 
in  embryo,  or  Naturalism,  which  is  Rationalism 
developed,  placed  us  in  the  secure  possession  of 
some  unerring  standard  of  truth  to  which  all  our 
beliefs  must  be  made  to  conform.  A  brief  criticism 
of  one  theological  scheme,  by  which  it  has  been 
sought  to  avoid  the  narrownesses  of  Naturalism 
without  breaking  with  Rationalising  methods,  con- 
firmed the  conclusion  that  any  such    procedure  is 


1 86  CAUSES  OF  EXPERIENCE 

predestined  to  be  ineffectual,  and  that  no  mere 
inferences  of  the  ordinary  pattern,  based  upon 
ordinary  experience,  will  enable  us  to  break  out  of 
the  Naturalistic  prison-house. 

But  if  Naturalism  by  itself  be  practically  in- 
sufficient, if  no  conclusion  based  on  its  affirmations 
will  enable  us  to  escape  from  the  cold  grasp  of  its 
negations,  and  if,  as  I  think,  the  contrasted  system 
of  Idealism  has  not  as  yet  got  us  out  of  the 
difficulty,  what  remedy  remains  ?  One  such  remedy 
consists  in  simply  setting  up  side  by  side  with 
the  creed  of  natural  science  another  and  supple- 
mentary set  of  beliefs,  which  may  minister  to  needs 
and  aspirations  which  science  cannot  meet,  and 
may  speak  amid  silences  which  science  is  power- 
less to  break.  The  natural  world  and  the  spiritual 
world,  the  world  which  is  immediately  subject  to 
causation  and  the  world  which  is  immediately 
subject  to  God,  are,  on  this  view,  each  of  them 
real,  and  each  of  them  the  objects  of  real  know- 
ledge. But  the  laws  of  the  natural  world  are 
revealed  to  us  by  the  discoveries  of  science; 
while  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  world  are  revealed 
to  us  through  the  authority  of  spiritual  intuitions, 
inspired  witnesses,  or  divinely  guided  institutions. 
And  the  two  regions  of  knowledge  lie  side  by  side, 
contiguous  but  not  connected,  like  empires  of  dif- 
ferent race  and  language,  which  own  no  common 
jurisdiction  nor  hold  any  intercourse  with  each  other, 
except  along  a  disputed  and  wavering  frontier  where 


CAUSES   OF   EXPERIENCE  187 

no  superior  power  exists  to  settle  their  quarrels  or 
determine  their  respective  limits. 

To  thousands  of  persons  this  patchwork  scheme 
of  belief,  though  it  may  be  in  a  form  less  sharply 
defined,  has,  in  substance,  commended  itself;  and  if 
and  in  so  far  as  it  really  meets  their  needs  I  have 
nothing  to  say  against  it,  and  can  hold  out  small  hope 
of  bettering  it.  It  is  much  more  satisfactory  as  regards 
its  content  than  Naturalism ;  it  is  not  much  less 
philosophical  as  regards  its  method  ;  and  it  has  the 
practical  merit  of  supplying  a  rough-and-ready  ex- 
pedient for  avoiding  the  consequences  which  follow 
from  a  premature  endeavour  to  force  the  general 
body  of  belief  into  the  rigid  limits  of  one  too  narrow- 
system. 

It  has,  however,  obvious  inconveniences.  There 
are  many  persons,  and  they  are  increasing  in  num- 
ber, who  find  it  difficult  or  impossible  to  acquiesce 
in  this  unconsidered  division  of  the  'Whole'  of 
knowledge  into  two  or  more  unconnected  fragments. 
Naturalism  may  be  practically  unsatisfactory.  But 
at  least  the  positive  teaching  of  Naturalism  has 
secured  general  assent ;  and  it  shocks  their  philo- 
sophic instinct  for  unity  to  be  asked  to  patch  and 
plaster  this  accepted  creed  with  a  number  of  hetero- 
geneous propositions  drawn  from  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent source,  and  on  behalf  of  which  no  such 
common  agreement  can  be  claimed. 

What  such  persons  ask  for,  and  rightly,  is  a 
philosophy,  a  scheme  of  knowledge,  which  shall  give 


188  CAUSES   OF   EXPERIENCE 

rational  unity  to  an  adequate  creed.  But,  as  the 
reader  knows,  I  have  it  not  to  give  ;  nor  does  it  even 
seem  to  me  that  we  have  any  right  to  flatter  our- 
selves that  we  are  on  the  verge  of  discovering  some 
all-reconciling  theory  by  which  each  inevitable  claim 
of  our  complex  nature  may  be  harmonised  under  the 
supremacy  of  Reason.  Unity,  then,  if  it  is  to  be 
attained  at  all,  must  be  sought  for,  so  to  speak,  at 
some  lower  speculative  level.  We  must  either 
pursue  the  Rationalising  and  Naturalistic  method 
already  criticised,  and  compel  the  desired  unification 
of  belief  by  the  summary  rejection  of  everything 
which  does  not  fit  into  some  convenient  niche  in  the 
scheme  of  things  developed  by  empirical  methods 
out  of  sense-perception  ;  or  if,  either  for  the  reasons 
given  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  these  Notes,  or  for 
others,  we  reject  this  method,  we  must  turn  for  assist- 
ance towards  a  new  quarter,  and  apply  ourselves  to 
the  problem  by  the  aid  of  some  more  comprehensive, 
or  at  least  more  manageable,  principle. 


in 

To  this  end  let  us  temporarily  divest  ourselves 
of  all  philosophic  preoccupation.  Provisionally 
restricting  ourselves  to  the  scientific  point  of  view, 
let  us  forbear  to  consider  beliefs  from  the  side  of 
proof,  and  let  us  survey  them  for  a  season  from  the 
side  of  origin  only,  and  in  their  relation  to  the  causes 
which  gave  them  birth.     Thus  considered  they  are, 


CAUSES  OF   EXPERIENCE  189 

of  course,  mere  products  of  natural  conditions ; 
psychological  growths  comparable  to  the  flora  and 
fauna  of  continents  or  oceans  ;  objects  of  which  we 
may  say  that  they  are  useful  or  harmful,  plentiful  or 
rare,  but  not,  except  parenthetically  and  with  a 
certain  irrelevance,  that  they  are  true  or  untrue. 

How,  then,  would  these  beliefs  appear  to  an 
investigator  from  another  planet  who,  applying 
the  ordinary  methods  of  science,  and  in  a  spirit  of 
detached  curiosity,  should  survey  them  from  the 
outside,  with  no  other  object  than  to  discover  the 
place  they  occupied  in  the  natural  history  of  the  earth 
and  its  inhabitants  ?  He  would  note,  I  suppose,  to 
begin  with,  that  the  vast  majority  of  these  beliefs 
were  the  short-lived  offspring  of  sense-perception, 
instinctive  judgments  on  observed  matter-of-fact. 
'The  sun  is  shining,'  'there  is  somebody  in  the 
room,'  '  I  feel  tired,'  would  be  examples  of  this  class  ; 
whose  members,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  refer 
immediately  only  to  the  passing  moment,  and  die  as 
soon  as  they  are  born.  If  now  our  investigator  turned 
his  attention  to  the  causes  of  these  beliefs  of  percep- 
tion, he  would,  of  course,  discover,  in  the  first  place, 
that,  when  normal,  they  were  invariably  due  to  the 
action  of  external  objects  upon  the  organism,  and 
more  particularly  upon  the  nervous  system,  of  the 
percipient ;  and  in  the  second  place,  that  though 
these  beliefs  were  thus  all  due  to  a  certain  kind  of 
neural  change,  the  converse  of  the  proposition  is  by 
no  means  true,  since,  taking  the  organic  world  at 


i9o  CAUSES   OF   EXPERIENCE 

large,  it  was  by  no  means  the  case  that  neural 
changes  of  this  kind  invariably,  or  even  usually, 
issued  in  beliefs  of  perception,  or,  indeed,  in  any 
psychical  result  whatever. 

For  consider  how  the  case  must  present  itself  to 
our  supposed  observer.  He  would  see  a  series  of 
organisms  possessed  of  nervous  systems  ranging 
from  the  most  rudimentary  type  to  the  most  com- 
plex. He  would  observe  that  the  action  of  the 
exterior  world  upon  those  systems  varied,  in  like 
manner,  from  the  simple  irritation  of  the  nerve- 
tissue  to  the  multitudinous  correspondences  and 
adjustments  involved  in  some  act  of  vision  by  man 
or  one  of  the  higher  mammals.  And  he  would  con- 
clude, and  rightly,  that  between  the  upper  and  the 
lower  members  of  the  scale  there  were  differences 
of  degree,  but  not  of  kind ;  and  that  existing  gaps 
might  be  conceived  as  so  filled  in  that  each  type 
might  melt  into  the  one  immediately  below  it  by 
insensible  gradations. 

If,  however,  he  endeavoured  to  draw  up  a  scale 
of  psychical  effects  whose  degrees  should  correspond 
with  this  scale  of  physiological  causes,  two  results 
would  make  themselves  apparent.  The  first  is,  that 
the  lower  part  of  the  psychical  scale  would  be  a  blank, 
because  in  the  case  of  the  simple  organisms  nervous 
changes  carried  with  them  no  mental  consequents. 
The  second  is,  that  even  when  mental  consequents 
do  appear,  they  form  no  continuous  series  like  their 
physiological    antecedents ;    but,    on    the   contrary, 


CAUSES   OF   EXPERIENCE  191 

those  at  the  top  of  the  scale  are  found  to  differ  in 
something  more  than  degree  from  those  which 
appear  lower  down.  We  do  not,  for  example,  sup- 
pose that  protozoa  can  properly  be  said  to  feel,  nor 
that  every  animal  which  feels  can  properly  be  said 
to  form  judgments  or  to  possess  immediate  beliefs 
of  perception. 

One  conclusion  our  observer  would,  I  suppose, 
draw  from  facts  like  these  is,  that  while  neural 
sensibility  to  external  influences  is  a  widespread 
benefit  to  organic  Nature,  the  feelings,  and  still  more 
the  beliefs,  to  which  in  certain  cases  it  gives  rise  are 
relatively  insignificant  phenomena,  useful  supple- 
ments to  the  purely  physiological  apparatus,  neces- 
sary, perhaps,  to  its  highest  developments,  but  still, 
if  operative  at  all,1  rather  in  the  nature  of  final 
improvements  to  the  machinery  than  of  parts  essen- 
tial to  its  working. 

A  like  result  would  attend  his  study  of  the  next 
class  of  beliefs  that  might  fall  under  his  notice,  those, 
namely,  which,  though  they  do  not  relate  to  things 
or  events  within  the  field  of  perception,  like  those  we 
have  just  been  considering,  are  yet  not  less  imme- 
diate in  their  character.  Memories  of  the  past  are  \ 
examples  of  this  type  ;  I  should  be  inclined  to  add, 
though  I  do  not  propose  here  to  justify  my  opinion, 
certain  instinctive  and,  so  to  speak,  automatic  expec-  { 
tations  about  the  future  or  that  part  of  the  present 
which  does  not  come  within  the  reach  of  direct  ex- 

1  See  Note  on  Chapter  V.,  page  304. 


1 92  CAUSES  OF  EXPERIENCE 

perience.  Like  the  beliefs  of  perception  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking,  they  would  seem  to  be  the 
psychical  side  of  neural  changes  which,  at  least  in 
their  simpler  forms,  need  be  accompanied  by  no 
psychical  manifestation.  Physiological  co-ordina- 
tion is  sufficient  by  itself  to  perform  services  for 
the  lower  animals  similar  in  kind  to  those  which,  in 
the  case  of  man,  are  usefully,  or  even  necessarily, 
supplemented  by  their  beliefs  of  memory  and  of  ex- 
pectation. 

These  two  classes  of  belief,  relating  respectively 
to  the  present  and  the  absent,  cover  the  whole 
ground  of  what  is  commonly  called  experience,  and 
something  more.  They  include,  therefore,  at  least 
in  rudimentary  form,  all  particulars  which,  on  any 
theory,  are  required  for  scientific  induction ;  and, 
according  to  empiricism  in  its  older  forms,  they 
supply  not  this  only,  but  also  the  whole  of  the 
raw  material,  without  any  exception,  out  of  which 
reason  must  subsequently  fashion  whatever  stock 
of  additional  beliefs  it  is  needful  for  mankind  to 
entertain. 

Our  Imaginary  Observer,  however,  quite  indif- 
ferent to  mundane  theories  as  to  what  ought  to 
produce  conviction,  and  intent  only  on  discovering 
how  convictions  are  actually  produced,  would  soon 
find  out  that  there  were  other  influences  besides 
reasoning  required  to  supplement  the  relatively 
simple  physiological  and  psychological  causes  which 
originate  the  immediate  beliefs  of  perception,  memory, 


CAUSES  OF  EXPERIENCE  193 

and  expectation.  These  immediate  beliefs  belong  to 
man  as  an  individual.  They  involve  no  commerce 
between  mind  and  mind.  They  might  equally  exist, 
and  would  equally  be  necessary,  if  each  man  stood 
face  to  face  with  material  Nature  in  friendless  isola- 
tion. But  they  neither  provide,  nor  by  any  merely 
logical  extension  can  be  made  to  provide,  the  appa- 
ratus of  beliefs  which  we  find  actually  connected 
with  the  higher  scientific  social  and  spiritual  life  of 
the  race.  These  also  are,  without  doubt,  the  product 
of  antecedent  causes — causes  many  in  number  and 
most  diverse  in  character.  They  presuppose,  to 
begin  with,  the  beliefs  of  perception,  memory,  and 
expectation  in  their  elementary  shape  ;  and  they 
also  imply  the  existence  of  an  organism  fitted  for 
their  hospitable  reception  by  ages  of  ancestral  prepa- 
ration. But  these  conditions,  though  necessary,  are 
clearly  not  enough  ;  the  appropriate  environment  has 
also  to  be  provided.  And  though  I  shall  not  attempt 
to  analyse  with  the  least  approach  to  completeness 
the  elements  of  which  that  environment  consists, 
yet  it  contains  one  group  of  causes  so  important 
in  their  collective  operation,  and  yet  in  popular  dis- 
course so  often  misrepresented,  that  a  detailed  notice 
of  it  seems  desirable. 


194 


CHAPTER   II 

AUTHORITY   AND    REASON 


This  group  is  perhaps  best  described  by  the  term 
Authority,  a  word  which  by  a  sharp  transition  trans- 
ports us  at  once  into  a  stormier  tract  of  speculation 
than  we  have  been  traversing  in  the  last  few  pages, 
though,  as  my  readers  may  be  disposed  to  think,  for 
that  reason,  perhaps,  among  others,  a  tract  more 
nearly  adjacent  to  theology  and  the  proper  subject- 
matter  of  these  Notes.  However  this  may  be,  it  is, 
I  am  afraid,  the  fact  that  the  discussion  on  which  I 
am  about  to  enter  must  bring  us  face  to  face  with 
one  problem,  at  least,  of  which,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
no  entirely  satisfactory  solution  has  yet  been  reached  ; 
which  certainly  I  cannot  pretend  to  solve  ;  which  can, 
therefore,  for  the  present  only  be  treated  in  a  man- 
ner provisional,  and  therefore  unsatisfactory.  Nor 
are  these  perennial  and  inherent  difficulties  the  only 
obstacles  we  have  to  contend  with.  For  the  subject 
is,  unfortunately,  one  familiar  to  discussion,  and,  like 
all  topics  which  have  been  the  occasion  of  passionate 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  195 

debate,  it  is  one  where  party  watchwords  have  exer- 
cised their  perturbing  and  embittering  influence. 

It  would  be,  perhaps,  an  exaggeration  to  assert 
that  the  theory  of  Authority  has  been  for  three  cen- 
turies the  main  battlefield  whereon  have  met  the 
opposing  forces  of  new  thoughts  and  old.  But  if  so, 
it  is  only  because,  at  this  point  at  least,  victory  is 
commonly  supposed  long  ago  to  have  declared  itself 
decisively  in  favour  of  the  new.  The  very  statement 
that  the  rival  and  opponent  of  authority  is  reason 1 
seems  to  most  persons  equivalent  to  a  declaration 
that  the  latter  must  be  in  the  right,  and  the  former  in 
the  wrong  ;  while  popular  discussion  and  speculation 
have  driven  deep  the  general  opinion  that  authority 
serves  no  other  purpose  in  the  economy  of  Nature 
than  to  supply  a  refuge  for  all  that  is  most  bigoted 
and  absurd. 

The  current  theory  by  which  these  views  are  sup- 
ported appears  to  be  something  of  this  kind.  Every- 
one has  a  '  right '  to  adopt  any  opinions  he  pleases. 
It  is  his  '  duty,'  before  exercising  this  '  right, 'critically 
to  sift  the  reasons  by  which  such  opinions  may  be 
supported,  and  so  to  adjust  the  degree  of  his  convic- 
tions that  they  shall  accurately  correspond  with  the 
evidences  adduced  in  their  favour.  Authority,  there- 
fore, has  no  place  among  the  legitimate  causes  of 
belief.      If  it  appears   among  them,  it  is  as  an  in- 

1  It  is,  perhaps,  hardly  necessary  to  note  that  throughout  this 
chapter  I  use  Reason  in  its  ordinary  and  popular,  not  in  its  transcen- 
dental, sense.  There  is  no  question  here  of  the  Logos  or  Absolute 
Reason. 

O  2 


1 96  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

truder,  to  be  jealously  hunted  down  and  mercilessly 
expelled.  Reason,  and  reason  only,  can  be  safely 
permitted  to  mould  the  convictions  of  mankind.  By 
its  inward  counsels  alone  should  beings  who  boast 
that  they  are  rational  submit  to  be  controlled. 

Sentiments  like  these  are  among  the  common- 
places of  political  and  social  philosophy.  Yet,  looked 
at  scientifically,  they  seem  to  me  to  be,  not  merely 
erroneous,  but  absurd.  Suppose  for  a  moment  a  com- 
munity of  which  each  member  should  deliberately  set 
himself  to  the  task  of  throwing  off  so  far  as  possible 
all  prejudices  due  to  education  ;  where  each  should 
consider  it  his  duty  critically  to  examine  the  grounds 
whereon  rest  every  positive  enactment  and  every 
moral  precept  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to 
obey  ;  to  dissect  all  the  great  loyalties  which  make 
social  life  possible,  and  all  the  minor  conventions 
which  help  to  make  it  easy  ;  and  to  weigh  out  with 
scrupulous  precision  the  exact  degree  of  assent  which 
in  each  particular  case  the  results  of  this  process 
might  seem  to  justify.  To  say  that  such  a  commu- 
nity, if  it  acted  upon  the  opinions  thus  arrived  at, 
would  stand  but  a  poor  chance  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  to  say  far  too  little.  It  could  never  even 
begin  to  be  ;  and  if  by  a  miracle  it  was  created,  it 
would  without  doubt  immediately  resolve  itself  into 
its  constituent  elements. 

For  consider  by  way  of  illustration  the  case  of 
Morality.  If  the  right  and  the  duty  of  private 
judgment  be  universal,  it  must  be  both  the  privilege 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  197 

and  the  business  of  every  man  to  subject  the  maxims 
of  current  morality  to  a  critical  examination  ;  and 
unless  the  examination  is  to  be  a  farce,  every  man 
should  bring  to  it  a  mind  as  little  warped  as  possible 
by  habit  and  education,  or  the  unconscious  bias  of 
foregone  conclusions.  Picture,  then,  the  condition  of 
a  society  in  which  the  successive  generations  would 
thus  in  turn  devote  their  energies  to  an  impartial 
criticism  of  the  '  traditional '  view.  What  qualifica- 
tions, natural  or  acquired,  for  such  a  task  we  are  to 
attribute  to  the  members  of  this  emancipated  com- 
munity I  know  not.  But  let  us  put  them  at  the 
highest.  Let  us  suppose  that  every  man  and 
woman,  or  rather  every  boy  and  girl  (for  ought 
Reason  to  be  ousted  from  her  rights  in  persons  under 
twenty-one  years  of  age  ? ),  is  endowed  with  the  apti- 
tude and  training  required  to  deal  with  problems 
like  these.  Arm  them  with  the  most  recent  methods 
of  criticism,  and  set  them  down  to  the  task  of 
estimating  with  open  minds  the  claims  which  charity, 
temperance  and  honesty,  murder,  theft  and  adultery 
respectively  have  upon  the  approval  or  disapproval 
of  mankind.  What  the  result  of  such  an  experiment 
would  be,  what  wild  chaos  of  opinions  would  result 
from  this  fiat  of  the  Uncreating  Word,  I  know  not. 
But  it  might  well  happen  that  even  before  our 
youthful  critics  got  so  far  as  a  re-arrangement  of  the 
Ten  Commandments,  they  might  find  themselves 
entangled  in  the  preliminary  question  whether  judg- 
ments conveying  moral  approbation  and  disapproba- 


i98  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

tion  were  of  a  kind  which  reasonable  beings  should  be 
asked  to  entertain  at  all ;  whether  'right'  and  'wrong' 
were  words  representing  anything  more  permanent 
and  important  than  certain  likes  and  dislikes  which 
happen  to  be  rather  widely  disseminated,  and  more 
or  less  arbitrarily  associated  with  social  and  legal 
sanctions.  I  conceive  it  to  be  highly  probable  that 
the  conclusions  at  which  on  this  point  they  would 
arrive  would  be  of  a  purely  negative  character.  The 
ethical  systems  competing  for  acceptance  would  by 
their  very  numbers  and  variety  suggest  suspicions 
as  to  their  character  and  origin.  Here,  would  our 
students  explain,  is  a  clear  presumption  to  be  found 
on  the  very  face  of  these  moralisings  that  they  were 
contrived,  not  in  the  interests  of  truth,  but  in  the 
interests  of  traditional  dogma.  How  else  explain 
the  fact,  that  while  there  is  no  great  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  what  things  are  right  or  wrong,  there  is 
no  semblance  of  agreement  as  to  why  they  are  right 
or  why  they  are  wrong.  All  authorities  concur,  for 
instance,  in  holding  that  it  is  wrong  to  commit  mur- 
der. But  one  philosopher  tells  us  that  it  is  wrong 
because  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind, and  that  to  do  anything  inconsistent  with  the 
happiness  of  mankind  is  wrong.  Another  tells  us 
that  it  is  contrary  to  the  dictates  of  conscience,  and 
that  everything  which  is  contrary  to  the  dictates  of 
conscience  is  wrong.  A  third  tells  us  that  it  is 
against  the  commandments  of  God,  and  that  every- 
thing which  is  against  the  commandments  of  God  is 


AUTHORITY  AND  REASON  199 

wrong.  A  fourth  tells  me  that  it  leads  to  the  gallows, 
and  that,  inasmuch  as  being  hanged  involves  a  sen- 
sible diminution  of  personal  happiness,  creatures 
who,  like  man,  are  by  nature  incapable  of  doing 
otherwise  than  seek  to  increase  the  sum  of  their 
personal  pleasures  and  diminish  the  sum  of  their 
personal  pains  cannot,  if  they  really  comprehend  the 
situation,  do  anything  which  may  bring  their 
existence  to  so  distressing  a  termination. 

Now  whence,  it  would  be  asked,  this  curious 
mixture  of  agreement  and  disagreement  ?  How 
account  for  the  strange  variety  exhibited  in  the 
premises  of  these  various  systems,  and  the  not  less 
strange  uniformity  exhibited  in  their  conclusions  ? 
Why  does  not  as  great  a  divergence  manifest  itself 
in  the  results  arrived  at  as  we  undoubtedly  find  in 
the  methods  employed  ?  How  comes  it  that  all 
these  explorers  reach  the  same  goal,  when  their 
points  of  departure  are  so  widely  dispersed  ?  Plainly 
but  one  plausible  method  of  solving  the  difficulty 
exists.  The  conclusions  were  in  every  case  deter- 
mined before  the  argument  began,  the  goal  was  in 
every  case  settled  before  the  travellers  set  out. 
There  is  here  no  surrender  of  belief  to  the  inward 
guidance  of  unfettered  reason.  Rather  is  reason 
coerced  to  a  foreordained  issue  by  the  external 
operation  of  prejudice  and  education,  or  by  the 
rougher  machinery  of  social  ostracism  and  legal 
penalty.  The  framers  of  ethical  systems  are  either 
philosophers  who  are  unable  to  free  themselves  from 


2oo  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

the  unfelt  bondage  of  customary  opinion,  or  advo- 
cates who  find  it  safer  to  exercise  their  liberty  of 
speculation  in  respect  to  premises  about  which  no- 
body cares,  than  in  respect  to  conclusions  which 
might  bring  them  into  conflict  with  the  police. 

So  might  we  imagine  the  members  of  our  eman- 
cipated community  discussing  the  principles  on  which 
morality  is  founded.  But,  in  truth,  it  were  a  vain 
task  to  work  out  in  further  detail  the  results  of 
an  experiment  which,  human  nature  being  what 
it  is,  can  never  be  seriously  attempted.  That  it  can 
never  be  seriously  attempted  is  not,  be  it  observed, 
because  it  is  of  so  dangerous  a  character  that 
the  community  in  its  wisdom  would  refuse  to  em- 
bark upon  it.  This  would  be  a  frail  protection 
indeed.  Not  the  danger  of  the  adventure,  but  its 
impossibility,  is  our  security.  To  reject  all  convic- 
tions which  are  not  the  products  of  free  speculative 
investigation  is,  fortunately,  an  exercise  of  which 
humanity  is  in  the  strictest  sense  incapable.  Some 
societies  and  some  individuals  may  show  more  incli- 
nation to  indulge  in  it  than  others.  But  in  no  con- 
dition of  society  and  in  no  individual  will  the  incli- 
nation be  more  than  very  partially  satisfied.  Always 
and  everywhere  our  Imaginary  Observer,  contem- 
plating from  some  external  coign  of  vantage  the 
course  of  human  history,  would  note  the  immense, 
the  inevitable,  and  on  the  whole  the  beneficent,  part 
which  Authority  plays  in  the  production  of  belief. 


AUTHORITY   AND    REASON 


II 

This  truth  finds  expression,  and  at  first  sight  we 
might  feel  inclined  to  say  recognition  also,  in  such 
familiar  commonplaces  as  that  every  man  is  the 
1  product  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives,'  and  that '  it 
is  vain  to  expect  him  to  rise  much  above  the  level 
of  his  age.'  But  aphorisms  like  these,  however  use- 
ful as  aids  to  a  correct  historical  perspective,  do  not, 
as  ordinarily  employed,  show  any  real  apprehension 
of  the  verity  on  which  I  desire  to  insist.  They 
belong  to  a  theory  which  regards  these  social  influ- 
ences as  clogs  and  hindrances,  hampering  the  free 
movements  of  those  who  might  under  happier  cir- 
cumstances have  struggled  successfully  towards  the 
truth  ;  or  as  perturbing  forces  which  drive  mankind 
from  the  even  orbit  marked  out  for  it  by  reason. 
Reason,  according  to  this  view,  is  a  kind  of  Ormuzd 
doing  constant  battle  against  the  Ahriman  of  tradition 
and  authority.  Its  gradual  triumph  over  the  oppos- 
ing powers  of  darkness  is  what  we  mean  by  Progress. 
Everything  which  shall  hasten  the  hour  of  that 
triumph  is  a  gain  ;  and  if  by  some  magic  stroke  we 
could  extirpate,  as  it  were  in  a  moment,  every  cause 
of  belief  which  was  not  also  a  reason,  we  should,  it 
appears,  be  the  fortunate  authors  of  a  reform  in  the 
moral  world  only  to  be  paralleled  by  the  abolition  of 
pain  and  disease  in  the  physical.  I  have  already  in- 
dicated some  of  the   grounds  which  induce  me  to 


202  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

form  a  very  different  estimate  of  the  part  which 
reason  plays  in  human  affairs.  Our  ancestors,  whose 
errors  we  palliate  on  account  of  their  environment 
with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction,  due  partly  to  our  keen 
appreciation  of  our  own  happier  position  and  greater 
breadth  of  view,  were  not  to  be  pitied  because  they 
reasoned  little  and  believed  much  ;  nor  should  we 
necessarily  have  any  particular  cause  for  self-gratu- 
lation  if  it  were  true  that  we  reasoned  more  and,  it 
may  be,  believed  less.  Not  thus  has  the  world  been 
fashioned.  But,  nevertheless,  this  identification  of 
reason  with  all  that  is  good  among  the  causes  of 
belief,  and  authority  with  all  that  is  bad,  is  a  delusion 
so  gross  and  yet  so  prevalent  that  a  moment's  ex- 
amination into  the  exaggerations  and  confusions 
which  lie  at  the  root  of  it  may  not  be  thrown  away. 

The  first  of  these  confusions  may  be  dismissed 
almost  in  a  sentence.  It  arises  out  of  the  tacit 
assumption  that  reason  means  right  reason.  Such 
an  assumption,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  begs  half  the 
point  at  issue.  Reason,  for  purposes  of  this  discus- 
sion, can  no  more  be  made  to  mean  right  reason 
than  authority  can  be  made  to  mean  legitimate 
authority.  True,  we  might  accept  the  first  of  these 
definitions,  and  yet  deny  that  all  right  belief  was  the 
fruit  of  reason.  But  we  could  hardly  deny  the  con- 
verse proposition,  that  reason  thus  defined  must 
always  issue  in  right  belief.  Nor  need  we  be  con- 
cerned to  deny  a  statement  at  once  so  obvious  and 
so  barren. 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  203 

The  source  of  error  which  has  next  to  be  noted 
presents  points  of  much  greater  interest.  Though  it 
be  true,  as  I  am  contending,  that  the  importance  of 
reason  among  the  causes  which  produce  and  main- 
tain the  beliefs,  customs,  and  ideals  which  form  the 
groundwork  of  life  has  been  much  exaggerated,  there 
can  yet  be  no  doubt  that  reason  is,  or  appears  to  be, 
the  cause  over  which  we  have  the  most  direct  control, 
or  rather  the  one  which  we  most  readily  identify 
with  our  own  free  and  personal  action.  We  are 
acted  on  by  authority.  It  moulds  our  ways  of 
thought  in  spite  of  ourselves,  and  usually  unknown 
to  ourselves.  But  when  we  reason  we  are  the 
authors  of  the  effect  produced.  We  have  ourselves 
set  the  machine  in  motion.  For  its  proper  working 
we  are  ourselves  immediately  responsible  ;  so  that  it 
is  both  natural  and  desirable  that  we  should  concen- 
trate our  attention  on  this  particular  class  of  causes, 
even  though  we  should  thus  be  led  unduly  to 
magnify  their  importance  in  the  general  scheme  of 
things. 

I  have  somewhere  seen  it  stated  that  the  steam- 
engine  in  its  primitive  form  required  a  boy  to  work 
the  valve  by  which  steam  was  admitted  to  the 
cylinder.  It  was  his  business  at  the  proper  period 
of  each  stroke  to  perform  this  necessary  operation 
by  pulling  a  string ;  and  though  the  same  object 
has  long  since  been  attained  by  mechanical  methods 
far  simpler  and  more  trustworthy,  yet  I  have  little 
doubt  that  until  the  advent    of  that    revolutionary 


2o4  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

youth  who  so  tied  the  string  to  one  of  the  moving 
parts  of  the  engine  that  his  personal  supervision  was 
no  longer  necessary,  the  boy  in  office  greatly  magni- 
fied his  functions,  and  regarded  himself  with  pardon- 
able pride  as  the  most  important,  because  the  only 
rational,  link  in  the  chain  of  causes  and  effects  by 
which  the  energy  developed  in  the  furnace  was 
ultimately  converted  into  the  motion  of  the  flywheel. 
So  do  we  stand  as  reasoning  beings  in  the  presence 
of  the  complex  processes,  physiological  and  psychical, 
out  of  which  are  manufactured  the  convictions  neces- 
sary to  the  conduct  of  life.  To  the  results  attained 
by  their  co-operation  reason  makes  its  slender  contri- 
bution ;  but  in  order  that  it  may  do  so  effectively, 
it  is  beneficently  decreed  that,  pending  the  evolution 
of  some  better  device,  reason  should  appear  to  the 
reasoner  the  most  admirable  and  important  contri- 
vance in  the  whole  mechanism. 

The  manner  in  which  attention  and  interest  are 
thus  unduly  directed  towards  the  operations,  vital 
and  social,  which  are  under  our  direct  control,  rather 
than  those  which  we  are  unable  to  modify,  or  can 
only  modify  by  a  very  indirect  and  circuitous  pro- 
cedure, may  be  illustrated  by  countless  examples. 
Take  one  from  physiology.  Of  all  the  complex 
causes  which  co-operate  for  the  healthy  nourishment 
of  the  body,  no  doubt  the  conscious  choice  of  the 
most  wholesome  rather  than  the  less  wholesome 
forms  of  ordinary  food  is  far  from  being  the  most 
important.      Yet,    as    it    is    within    our    immediate 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  205 

competence,  we  attend  to  it,  moralise  about  it,  and 
generally  make  much  of  it.  But  no  man  can  by  taking 
thought  directly  regulate  his  digestive  secretions. 
We  never,  therefore,  think  of  them  at  all  until  they  go 
wrong,  and  then,  unfortunately,  to  very  little  purpose. 
So  it  is  with  the  body  politic.  A  certain  proportion 
(probably  a  small  one)  of  the  changes  and  adaptations 
required  by  altered  surroundings  can  only  be  effected 
through  the  solvent  action  of  criticism  and  discussion. 
How  such  discussion  shall  be  conducted,  what  are 
the  arguments  on  either  side,  how  a  decision  shall 
be  arrived  at,  and  how  it  shall  be  carried  out,  are 
matters  which  we  seem  able  to  regulate  by  conscious 
effort  and  the  deliberate  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 
We  therefore  unduly  magnify  the  part  they  play  in 
the  furtherance  of  our  interests.  We  perceive  that 
they  supply  business  to  the  practical  politician,  raw 
material  to  the  political  theorist  ;  and  we  forget  amid 
the  buzzing  of  debate  the  multitude  of  incomparably 
more  important  processes,  by  whose  undesigned  co- 
operation alone  the  life  and  growth  of  the  State  is 
rendered  possible. 

in 

There  is,  however,  a  third  source  of  illusion, 
which  well  deserves  the  attentive  study  of  those 
who,  like  our  Imaginary  Observer,  are  interested  in 
the  purely  external  and  scientific  investigation  of  the 
causes  which  produce  belief.  I  have  already  in  this 
chapter  made  reference  to  the  '  spirit  of  the  age '  as 


2o6  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

one  form  in  which  authority  most  potently  manifests 
itself ;  and  undoubtedly  it  is  so.  Dogmatic  educa- 
tion in  early  years  may  do  much.1  The  immediate 
pressure  of  domestic,  social,  scientific,  ecclesiastical 
surroundings  in  the  direction  of  specific  beliefs  may 
do  even  more.  But  the  power  of  authority  is  never 
more  subtle  and  effective  than  when  it  produces  a 
psychological  '  atmosphere  '  or  '  climate  '  favourable 
to  the  life  of  certain  modes  of  belief,  unfavourable, 
and  even  fatal,  to  the  life  of  others.  Such  '  climates  ' 
may  be  widely  diffused,  or  the  reverse.  Their  range 
may  cover  a  generation,  an  epoch,  a  whole  civilisa- 
tion, or  it  may  be  narrowed  down  to  a  sect,  a  family, 
even  an  individual.  And  as  they  may  vary  infinitely 
in  respect  to  the  extent  of  their  influence,  so  also 
they  may  vary  in  respect  to  its  intensity  and  quality. 
But  whatever  be  their  limits  and  whatever  their 
character,  their  importance  to  the  conduct  of  life, 
social  and  individual,  cannot  easily  be  overstated. 

Consider,  for  instance,  their  effect  on  great  classes 
of  belief  with  which  reasoning,  were  it  only  on  ac- 
count of  their  mass,  is  quite  incompetent  to  deal.  If 
all  credible  propositions,  all  propositions  which  some- 
body at  some  time  had  been  able  to  believe,  were 
only  to  be  rejected  after  their  claims  had  been 
impartially  tested  by  a  strictly  logical  investigation, 
the  intellectual  machine  would  be  overburdened, 
and    its    movements    hopelessly   choked    by    mere 

1  I  may  again  remind  the  reader  that  the  word  dogmatic  as    used 
in  these  Notes  has  no  special  theological  reference. 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  207 

excess  of  material.  Even  such  products  as  it  could 
turn  out  would,  as  I  conjecture  (for  the  experiment 
has  never  been  tried),  prove  but  a  motley  collection, 
so  diverse  in  design,  so  incongruous  and  ill-assorted, 
that  they  could  scarcely  contribute  the  fitting  furni- 
ture of  a  well-ordered  mind.  What  actually  happens 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  is  something  very 
different.  To  beodn  with,  external  circumstances, 
mere  conditions  of  time  and  place,  limit  the  number 
of  opinions  about  which  anything  is  known,  and  on 
which,  therefore,  it  is  (so  to  speak)  materially  possibJe 
that  reason  can  be  called  upon  to  pronounce  a  judg- 
ment. But  there  are  internal  limitations  not  less 
universal  and  not  less  necessary.  Few  indeed  are 
the  beliefs,  even  among  those  which  come  under  his 
observation,  which  any  individual  for  a  moment 
thinks  himself  called  upon  seriously  to  consider  with 
a  view  to  their  possible  adoption.  The  residue  he 
summarily  disposes  of,  rejects  without  a  hearing,  or 
rather  treats  as  if  they  had  not  even  that  prima  facie 
claim  to  be  adjudicated  on  which  formal  rejection 
seems  to  imply. 

Now,  can  this  process  be  described  as  a  rational 
one  ?  That  it  is  not  the  immediate  result  of  reason- 
ing is,  I  think,  evident  enough.  All  would  admit, 
for  example,  that  when  the  mind  is  closed  against 
the  reception  of  any  truth  by  '  bigotry  '  or  '  inveterate 
prejudice,'  the  effectual  cause  of  the  victory  of  error 
is  not  so  much  bad  reasoning  as  something  which, 
in  its  essential  nature,  is  not  reasoning  at  all.     But 


2o8  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

there  is  really  no  ground  for  drawing  a  distinction 
as  regards  their  mode  of  operation  between  the 
'  psychological  climates '  which  we  happen  to  like 
and  those  of  which  we  happen  to  disapprove.  How- 
ever various  their  character,  all,  I  take  it,  work  out 
their  results  very  much  in  the  same  kind  of  way. 
For  good  or  for  evil,  in  ancient  times  and  in  modern, 
among  savage  folk  and  among  civilised,  it  is  ever  by 
an  identic  process  that  they  have  sifted  and  selected 
the  candidates  for  credence,  on  which  reason  has 
been  afterwards  called  upon  to  pass  judgment ;  and 
that  process  is  one  with  which  ratiocination  has 
little  or  nothing  directly  to  do. 

But  though  these  '  psychological  climates  '  do  not 
work  through  reasoning,  may  they  not  themselves,  in 
many  cases,  be  the  products  of  reasoning  ?  May  they 
not,  therefore,  be  causes  of  belief  which  belong,  though 
it  be  only  at  the  second  remove,  to  the  domain  of 
reason  rather  than  to  that  of  authority  ?  To  the  first 
of  these  questions  the  answer  must  doubtless  be  in 
the  affirmative.  Reasoning  has  unquestionably  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  the  production  of  psychological 
climates.  As  '  climates  '  are  among  the  causes  which 
produce  beliefs,  so  are  beliefs  among  the  causes 
which  produce  '  climates,'  and  all  reasoning,  therefore, 
which  culminates  in  belief  may  be,  and  indeed  must 
be,  at  least  indirectly  concerned  in  the  effects  which 
belief  develops.  But  are  these  results  rational  ? 
Do  they  follow,  I  mean,  on  reason  qua  reason  ;  or 
are  they,  like  a  schoolboy's  tears  over  a  proposition 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  209 

of  Euclid,  consequences  of  reasoning,  but  not  con- 
clusions from  it  ? 

In  order  to  answer  this  question  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  consider  it  in  the  light  of  an  example  which 
I  have  already  used  in  another  connection  and  under 
a  different  aspect.  It  will  be  recollected  that  in  a 
preceding  chapter  I  considered  Rationalism,  not  as 
a  psychological  climate,  a  well-characterised  mood  of 
mind,  but  as  an  explicit  principle  of  judgment,  in 
which  the  rationalising  temper  may  for  purposes  of 
argument  find  definite  expression.  To  Rationalism 
in  the  first  of  these  senses — to  Rationalism,  in  other 
words,  considered  as  a  form  of  Authority — I  now 
revert  ;  taking  it  as  an  instance  specially  suited  to 
our  purpose,  not  only  because  its  meaning  is  well 
understood,  but  because  it  is  found  at  our  own  level 
of  intellectual  development,  and  we  can  therefore 
study  its  origin  and  character  with  a  kind  of  insight 
quite  impossible  when  we  are  dealing  with  the 
'  climates '  which  govern  in  so  singular  a  fashion  the 
beliefs  of  primitive  races.  These,  too,  may  be,  and  I 
suppose  are,  to  some  extent,  the  products  of  reason- 
ing. But  the  reasoning  appears  to  us  as  arbitrary 
as  the  resulting  '  climates  '  are  repugnant  ;  and 
though  we  can  note  and  classify  the  facts,  we  can 
hardly  comprehend  them  with  sympathetic  under- 
standing. 

With  Rationalism  it  is  different.  How  the  dis- 
coveries of  science,  the  growth  of  criticism,  and 
the  diffusion  of  learning  should  have  fostered  the 


210  AUTHORITY   AND    REASON 

rationalising  temper  seems  intelligible  to  all,  because 
all,  in  their  different  degrees,  have  been  subject  to 
these  very  influences.  Not  everyone  is  a  rationalist ; 
but  everyone,  educated  or  uneducated,  is  prepared  to 
reject  without  further  examination  certain  kinds  of 
statement  which,  before  the  rationalising  era  set  in, 
would  have  been  accepted  without  difficulty  by  the 
wisest  among  mankind. 

Now  this  modern  mood,  whether  in  its  qualified 
or  unqualified  (i.e.  naturalistic)  form,  is  plainly  no 
mere  product  of  non-rational  conditions,  as  the 
enumeration  I  have  just  given  of  its  most  conspicu- 
ous causes  is  sufficient  to  prove.  Natural  science 
and  historical  criticism  have  not  been  built  up  with- 
out a  vast  expenditure  of  reasoning,  and  (though 
for  present  purposes  this  is  immaterial)  very  good 
reasoning,  too.  But  are  we  on  that  account  to  say 
that  the  results  of  the  rationalising  temper  are  the 
work  of  reason  ?  Surely  not.  The  rationalist  re- 
jects miracles  ;  and  if  you  force  him  to  a  discussion, 
he  may  no  doubt  produce  from  the  ample  stores  of 
past  controversy  plenty  of  argument  in  support  of 
his  belief.  But  do  not  therefore  assume  that  his 
belief  is  the  result  of  his  argument.  The  odds  are 
strongly  in  favour  of  argument  and  belief  having 
both  grown  up  under  the  fostering  influence  of  his 
1  psychological  climate.'  For  observe  that  precisely 
in  the  way  in  which  he  rejects  miracles  he  also 
rejects  witchcraft.  Here  there  has  been  no  con- 
troversy worth   mentioning.     The  general  belief  in 


AUTHORITY   AND    REASON  211 

witchcraft  has  died  a  natural  death,  and  it  has  not 
been  worth  anybody's  while  to  devise  arguments 
against  it.  Perhaps  there  are  none.  But,  whether 
there  be  or  not,  no  logical  axe  was  required  to  cuf 
down  a  plant  which  had  not  the  least  chance  of 
flourishing  in  a  mental  atmosphere  so  rigorous  and 
uncongenial  as  that  of  rationalism  ;  and  accordingly 
no  logical  axe  has  been  provided. 

The  belief  in  mesmerism,  however,  supplies  in 
some  ways  a  more  instructive  case  than  the  belief 
either  in  miracles  or  witchcraft.  Like  these,  it  found 
in  rationalism  a  hostile  influence.  But,  unlike  these, 
it  could  call  in  almost  at  will  the  assistance  of  what 
would  now  be  regarded  as  ocular  demonstration. 
For  two  generations,  however,  this  was  found  insuf- 
ficient. For  two  generations  the  rationalistic  bias 
proved  sufficiently  strong  to  pervert  the  judgment  of 
the  most  distinguished  observers,  and  to  incapacitate 
them  from  accepting  what  under  more  favourable 
circumstances  they  would  have  called  the  'plain 
evidence  of  their  senses.'  So  that  we  are  here  pre- 
sented with  the  curious  spectacle  of  an  intellectual 
mood  or  temper,  whose  origin  was  largely  due  to 
the  growth  of  the  experimental  sciences,  making  it 
impossible  for  those  affected  to  draw  the  simplest 
inference,  even  from  the  most  conclusive  experi- 
ments. 

This  is  an  interesting  case  of  the  conflict  between 
authority  and  reason,  because  it  illustrates  the  general 
truth  for  which   I   have  been   contending,  with  an 


2i2  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

emphasis  that  would  be  impossible  if  we  took  as  our 
example  some  worn-out  vesture  of  thought,  thread- 
bare from  use,  and  strange  to  eyes  accustomed  to 
newer  fashions.  Rationalism,  in  its  turn,  may  be 
predestined  to  suffer  a  like  decay ;  but  in  the  mean- 
while it  forcibly  exemplifies  the  part  played  by 
authority  in  the  formation  of  beliefs.  If  rationalism 
be  regarded  as  a  non-rational  effect  of  reason  and  a 
non-rational  cause  of  belief,  the  same  admission  will 
readily  be  made  about  all  other  intellectual  climates  ; 
and  that  rationalism  should  be  so  regarded  is  now, 
I  trust,  plain  to  the  reader.  The  only  results  which 
reason  can  claim  as  hers  by  an  exclusive  title  are  of 
the  nature  of  logical  conclusions  ;  and  rationalism  is 
not  a  logical  conclusion,  but  an  intellectual  temper. 
The  only  instruments  which  reason,  as  such,  can 
employ  are  arguments  ;  and  rationalism  is  not  an 
argument,  but  an  impulse  towards  belief,  or  disbelief. 
So  that,  though  rationalism,  like  other  '  psychological 
climates,'  is  doubtless  due,  among  other  causes,  to 
reason,  it  is  not  on  that  account  a  rational  product ; 
and  though  in  its  turn  it  produces  beliefs,  it  is  not 
on  that  account  a  rational  cause. 


IV 

The  most  important  source  of  error  on  this  sub- 
ject remains,  however,  to  be  dealt  with  ;  and  it  arises 
directly  out  of  that  jurisdiction  which  in  matters  of 
belief  we  can  hardly  do  otherwise  than  recognise  as 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  213 

belonging  to  Reason  by  a  natural  and  indefeasible 
title.  No  one  finds  (if  my  observations  in  this 
matter  are  correct)  any  serious  difficulty  in  attribut- 
ing the  origin  of  other  people's  beliefs,  especially  if  he 
disagree  with  them,  to  causes  which  are  not  reasons. 
That  interior  assent  should  be  produced  in  countless 
cases  by  custom,  education,  public  opinion,  the  con- 
tagious convictions  of  countrymen,  family,  party,  or 
Church,  seems  natural,  and  even  obvious.  That  but 
a  small  number,  at  least  of  the  most  important  and 
fundamental  beliefs,  are  held  by  persons  who  could 
give  reasons  for  them,  and  that  of  this  small  number 
only  an  inconsiderable  fraction  are  held  in  conse- 
quence of  the  reasons  by  which  they  are  nominally 
supported,  may  perhaps  be  admitted  with  no  very 
great  difficulty.  But  it  is  harder  to  recognise  that 
this  law  is  not  merely,  on  the  whole,  beneficial,  but 
that  without  it  the  business  of  the  world  could  not 
possibly  be  carried  on  ;  nor  do  we  allow,  without 
reluctance  and  a  sense  of  shortcoming,  that  in  our 
own  persons  we  supply  illustrations  of  its  operation 
quite  as  striking  as  any  presented  to  us  by  the  rest 
of  the  world. 

Now  this  reluctance  is  not  the  result  of  vanity, 
nor  of  any  fancied  immunity  from  weaknesses 
common  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  It  is,  rather, 
a  direct  consequence  of  the  view  we  find  our- 
selves compelled  to  take  of  the  essential  character 
of  reason  and  of  our  relations  to  it.  Looked 
at  from    the   outside,  as   one  among  the    complex 


2i4  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

conditions  which  produce"  belief,  reason  appears 
relatively  insignificant  and  ineffectual  ;  not  only 
appears  so,  but  umst  be  so,  if  human  society  is 
to  be  made  possible.  Looked  at  from  the  inside,  it 
claims  by  an  inalienable  title  to  be  supreme.  Mea- 
sured by  its  results  it  may  be  little  ;  measured  by  its 
rights  it  is  everything.  There  is  no  problem  it  may 
not  investigate,  no  belief  which  it  may  not  assail, 
no  principle  which  it  may  not  test.  It  cannot,  even 
by  its  own  voluntary  act,  deprive  itself  of  universal 
jurisdiction,  as,  according  to  a  once  fashionable  theory, 
primitive  man,  on  entering  the  social  state,  contracted 
himself  out  of  his  natural  rights  and  liberties.  On 
the  contrary,  though  its  claims  may  be  ignored,  they 
cannot  be  repudiated  ;  and  even  those  who  shrink 
from  the  criticism  of  dogma  as  a  sin,  would  probably 
admit  that  they  do  so  because  it  is  an  act  forbidden 
by  those  they  are  bound  to  obey  ;  do  so,  that  is  to 
say,  nominally  at  least,  for  a  reason  which,  at  any 
moment,  if  it  should  think  fit,  reason  itself  may 
reverse. 

Why,  under  these  circumstances,  we  are  moved 
to  regard  ourselves  as  free  intelligences,  forming  our 
opinions  solely  in  obedience  to  reason  ;  why  we  come 
to  regard  reason  itself,  not  only  as  the  sole  legitimate 
source  of  belief — which,  perhaps,  it  may  be — but  the 
sole  source  of  legitimate  beliefs — which  it  assuredly  is 
not,  must  now,  I  hope,  be  tolerably  obvious,  and  needs 
not  to  be  further  emphasised.  It  is  more  instructive 
for  our  present  purpose  to  consider  for  a  moment 


AUTHORITY   AND    REASON  215 

certain  consequences  of  this  antinomy  between  the 
equities  of  Reason  and  the  expediencies  of  Authority 
which  rise  into  prominence  whenever,  under  the 
changing  conditions  of  society,  the  forces  of  the  latter 
are  being  diverted  into  new  and  unaccustomed 
channels. 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  the  full  extent  and 
difficulty  of  the  problems  involved  have  not  com- 
monly been  realised  by  the  advocates  either  of 
authority  or  reason,  though  each  has  usually  had  a 
sufficient  sense  of  the  strength  of  the  other's  position 
to  induce  him  to  borrow  from  it,  even  at  the  cost  of 
some  little  inconsistency.  The  supporter  of  autho- 
rity, for  instance,  may  point  out  some  of  the  more 
obvious  evils  by  which  any  decrease  in  its  influence 
is  usually  accompanied  :  the  comminution  of  sects, 
the  divisions  of  opinion,  the  weakened  powers  of 
co-operation,  the  increase  of  strife,  the  waste  of 
power.  Yet,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  nation,  party, 
or  church  has  ever  courted  controversial  disaster  by 
admitting  that,  if  its  claims  were  impartially  tried  at 
the  bar  of  Reason,  the  verdict  would  go  against  it. 
In  the  same  way,  those  who  have  most  clamorously 
upheld  the  prerogatives  of  individual  reason  have 
always  been  forced  to  recognise  by  their  practice,  if 
not  by  their  theory,  that  the  right  of  every  man  to 
judge  on  every  question  for  himself  is  like  the  right 
of  every  man  who  possesses  a  balance  at  his  bankers 
to  require  its  immediate  payment  in  sovereigns. 
The  right  may  be  undoubted  ;  but  it  can  only  be 


«i6  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

safely  enjoyed  on  condition  that  too  many  persons 
do  not  take  it  into  their  heads  to  exercise  it  together. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  most  striking  evidence,  both 
of  the  powers  of  authority  and  the  rights  of  reason, 
may  be  found  in  the  fact  already  alluded  to,  that 
beliefs  which  are  really  the  offspring  of  the  first, 
when  challenged,  invariably  claim  to  trace  their 
descent  from  the  second,  although  this  improvised 
pedigree  may  be  as  imaginary  as  if  it  were  the  work 
of  a  college  of  heralds.  To  be  sure,  when  this 
contrivance  has  served  its  purpose  it  is  usually  laid 
silently  aside,  while  the  belief  it  was  intended  to 
support  remains  quietly  in  possession,  until,  in  the 
course  of  time,  some  other,  and  perhaps  not  less 
illusory,  title  has  to  be  devised  to  meet  the  pleas  of 
a  new  claimant. 

If  the  reader  desires  an  illustration  of  this  pro- 
cedure, here  is  one  taken  at  random  from  English 
political  history.  Among  the  results  of  the  move- 
ment which  culminated  in  the  Great  Rebellion  was 
of  necessity  a  marked  diminution  in  the  universality 
and  efficacy  of  that  mixture  of  feelings  and  beliefs 
which  constitute  loyalty  to  national  government. 
Now  loyalty,  in  some  shape  or  other,  is  necessary 
for  the  stability  of  any  form  of  polity.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  valuable  products  of  authority,  and, 
whether  in  any  particular  case  conformable  to  reason 
or  not,  is  essentially  unreasoning.  Its  theoretical 
basis  therefore  excites  but  little  interest,  and  is  of 
very  subordinate  importance  so  long  as  it  controls 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  217 

the  hearts  of  men  with  undisputed  sway.  But  as 
soon  as  its  supremacy  is  challenged,  men  begin  to 
cast  about  anxiously  for  reasons  why  it  should  con- 
tinue to  be  obeyed. 

Thus,  to  some  of  those  who  lived  through  the 
troubles  which  preceded  and  accompanied  the  Great 
Rebellion,  it  became  suddenly  apparent  that  it  was 
above  all  things  necessary  to  bolster  up  by  argu- 
ment the  creed  which  authority  had  been  found 
temporarily  insufficient  to  sustain  ;  and  of  the  argu- 
ments thus  called  into  existence  two,  both  of  extra- 
ordinary absurdity,  have  become  historically  famous 
— that  contained  in  Hobbes'  'Leviathan,'  and  that 
taught  for  a  period  with  much  vigour  by  the  Anglican 
clergy  under  the  name  of  Divine  right.  These 
theories  may  have  done  their  work  ;  in  any  case  they 
had  their  day.  It  was  discovered  that,  as  is  the  way 
of  abstract  arguments  dragged  in  to  meet  a  concrete 
difficulty,  they  led  logically  to  a  great  many  conclu- 
sions much  less  convenient  than  the  one  in  whose 
defence  they  had  been  originally  invoked.  The 
crisis  which  called  them  forth  passed  gradually  away. 
They  were  repugnant  to  the  taste  of  a  different  age  ; 
'  Leviathan  '  and  '  passive  obedience  '  were  handed 
over  to  the  judgment  of  the  historian. 

This  is  an  example  of  how  an  ancient  principle, 
broadly  based  though  it  be  on  the  needs  and  feelings 
of  human  nature,  may  be  thought  now  and  again  to 
require  external  support  to  enable  it  to  meet  some 
special  stress  of  circumstances.     But  often  the  stress 


218  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

is  found  to  be  brief;  a  few  internal  alterations  meet 
all  the  necessities  of  the  case  ;  to  a  new  generation 
the  added  buttresses  seem  useless  and  unsightly. 
They  are  soon  demolished,  to  make  way  in  due 
time,  no  doubt,  for  others  as  temporary  as  them- 
selves. Nothing  so  quickly  waxes  old  as  apolo- 
getics, unless,  perhaps,  it  be  criticism. 

A  precisely  analogous  process  commonly  goes  on 
in  the  case  of  new  principles  struggling  into  recog- 
nition. As  those  of  older  growth  are  driven  by  the 
instincts  of  self-preservation  to  call  reasoning  to 
their  assistance,  so  these  claim  the  aid  of  the  same 
ally  for  purposes  of  attack  and  aggression  ;  and  the 
incongruity  between  the  real  causes  by  which  these 
new  beliefs  are  sustained,  and  the  official  reasons  by 
which  they  are  from  time  to  time  justified,  is  often 
not  less  glaring  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other. 
Witness  the  ostentatious  futility  of  the  theories — 
'  rights  of  man,'  and  so  forth — by  the  aid  of  which 
the  modern  democratic  movement  was  nursed 
through  its  infant  maladies. 

Now  these  things  are  true,  not  alone  in  politics, 
but  in  every  field  of  human  activity  where  authority 
and  reason  co-operate  to  serve  the  needs  of  mankind 
ai  large.  And  thus  may  we  account  for  the  singular 
fact  that  in  many  cases  conclusions  are  more  per- 
manent than  premises,  and  that  the  successive 
growths  of  apologetic  and  critical  literature  do  often 
not  more  seriously  affect  the  enduring  outline  of  the 
beliefs  by  which  they  are  occasioned  than  the  sue- 


AUTHORITY   AND    REASON  219 

cessive  forests  of  beech  and  fir  determine  the  shape 
of  the  everlasting  hills  from  which  they  spring. 


Here,  perhaps,  I  might  fitly  conclude  this  portion 
of  my  task,  were  it  not  that  one  particular  mode  in 
which  Authority  endeavours  to  call  in  reasoning  to 
its  assistance  is  so  important  in  itself,  and  has  led 
to  so  much  confusion  both  of  thought  and  of 
language,  that  a  few  paragraphs  devoted  to  its  con- 
sideration may  help  the  reader  to  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  the  general  subject.  Authority,  as  I 
have  been  using  the  term,  is  in  all  cases  contrasted 
with  Reason,  and  stands  for  that  group  of  non-rational 
causes,  moral,  social  and  educational,  which  produces 
its  results  by  psychic  processes  other  than  reasoning. 
But  there  is  a  simple  operation,  -a  mere  turn  of 
phrase,  by  which  many  of  these  non-rational  causes 
can,  so  to  speak,  be  converted  into  reasons  without 
seeming  at  first  sight  thereby  to  change  their  function 
as  channels  of  Authority  ;  and  so  convenient  is  this 
method  of  bringing  these  two  sources  of  conviction 
on  to  the  same  plane,  so  perfectly  does  it  minister 
to  our  instinctive  desire  to  produce  a  reason  for 
every  challenged  belief,  that  it  is  constantly  re- 
sorted to  (without  apparently  any  clear  idea  of  its 
real  import),  both  by  those  who  regard  themselves 
as  upholders  and  those  who  regard  themselves 
as  opponents   of  Authority  in    matters   of  opinion. 


220  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

To  say  that  I  believe  a  statement  because  I  have 
been  taught  it,  or  because  my  father  believed  it 
before  me,  or  because  everybody  in  the  village 
believes  it,  is  to  announce  what  everyday  experience 
informs  us  is  a  quite  adequate  cause  of  belief — it  is 
not,  however,  per  se,  to  give  a  reason  for  belief  at  all. 
But  such  statements  can  be  turned  at  once  into 
reasons  by  no  process  more  elaborate  than  that  of 
explicitly  recognising  that  my  teachers,  my  family, 
or  my  neighbours,  are  truthful  persons,  happy  in  the 
possession  of  adequate  means  of  information — pro- 
positions which  in  their  turn,  of  course,  require 
argumentative  support.  Such  a  procedure  may,  I 
need  hardly  say,  be  quite  legitimate  ;  and  reasons  of 
this  kind  are  probably  the  principal  ground  on  which 
in  mature  life  we  accept  the  great  mass  of  our  sub- 
ordinate scientific  and  historical  convictions.  I 
believe,  for  instance,  that  the  moon  falls  in  towards 
the  earth  with  the  exact  velocity  required  by  the 
force  of  gravitation,  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
I  believe  in  the  competence  and  trustworthiness 
of  the  persons  who  have  made  the  necessary  calcu- 
lations. In  this  case  the  reason  for  my  belief 
and  the  immediate  cause  of  it  are  identical ;  the 
cause,  indeed,  is  a  cause  only  in  virtue  of  its  being 
first  a  reason.  But  in  the  former  case  this  is  not  so. 
Mere  early  training,  paternal  authority,  or  public 
opinion,  were  causes  of  belief  before  they  were  rea- 
sons ;  they  continued  to  act  as  non-rational  causes 
after  they  became  reasons  ;  and  it  is  not  improbable 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  221 

that  to  the  very  end  they  contributed  less  to  the 
resultant  conviction  in  their  capacity  as  reasons  than 
they  did  in  their  capacity  as  non-rational  causes. 

Now  the  temptation  thus  to  convert  causes  into 
reasons  seems  under  certain  circumstances  to  be 
almost  irresistible,  even  when  it  is  illegitimate. 
Authority,  as  such,  is  from  the  nature  of  the  case  \ 
dumb  in  the  presence  of  argument.  It  is  only  by 
reasoning  that  reasoning  can  be  answered.  It  can 
be,  and  has  often  been,  thrust  silently  aside  by  that 
instinctive  feeling  of  repulsion  which  we  call  pre- 
judice when  we  happen  to  disagree  with  it.  But  it 
can  only  be  replied  to  by  its  own  kind.  And  so  it 
comes  about  that  whenever  any  system  of  belief  is 
seriously  questioned,  a  method  of  defence  which  is 
almost  certain  to  find  favour  is  to  select  one  of  the 
causes  by  which  the  belief  has  been  produced,  and 
forthwith  to  erect  it  into  a  reason  why  the  system 
should  continue  to  be  accepted.  Authority,  as  I 
have  been  using  the  term,  is  thus  converted  into 
'an  authority,'  or  into  'authorities.'  It  ceases  to  be 
the  opposite  or  correlative  of  reason.  It  can  no 
longer  be  contrasted  with  reason.  It  becomes  a 
species  of  reason,  and  as  a  species  of  reason  it  must 
be  judged. 

So  judged,  it  appears  to  me  that  two  things 
pertinent  to  the  present  discussion  may  be  said  of  it. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  evidently  an  argument  of 
immense  utility  and  of  very  wide  application.  As  I 
have  just  noted,  it  is  the  proximate  reason  for  an 


?22  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

enormous  proportion  of  our  beliefs  as  to  matters  of 
fact,  past  and  present,  and  for  that  very  large  body 
of  scientific  knowledge  which  even  experts  in  science 
can  have  no  opportunity  of  personally  verifying. 
But,  in  the  second  place,  it  seems  not  less  clear  that 
the  argument  from  *  an  authority '  or  '  authorities  '  is 
almost  always  useless  as  a  foundation  for  a  system 
of  belief.  The  deep-lying  principles  which  alone 
deserve  this  name  may  be,  and  frequently  are,  the 
product  of  authority.  But  the  attempt  to  ground 
them  dialectically  upon  an  authority  can  scarcely  be 
attempted,  except  at  the  risk  of  logical  disaster. 

Take  as  an  example  the  general  system  of  our 
beliefs  about  the  material  universe.  The  greater 
number  of  these  are,  as  we  have  seen,  quite  legiti- 
mately based  upon  the  argument  from  '  authorities '  ; 
not  so  those  which  lie  at  the  root  of  the  system. 
These  also  are  largely  due  to  Authority.  But 
they  cannot  be  rationally  derived  from  '  autho- 
rities '  ;  though  the  attempt  so  to  derive  them  is 
almost  certain  to  be  made.  The  'universal  ex- 
perience,' or  the  'general  consent  of  mankind,'  will 
be  adduced  as  an  authoritative  sanction  of  certain 
fundamental  presuppositions  of  physical  science  ; 
and  of  these,  at  least,  it  will  be  said,  securus  ptdicat 
orbis  terrarum.  But  a  very  little  consideration  is 
sufficient  to  show  that  this  procedure  is  illegitimate, 
and  that,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  we  can  neither 
know  that  the  verdict  of  mankind  has  been  given, 
nor,  if  it  has,  that  anything  can  properly  be  inferred 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  223 

from  it,  unless  we  first  assume  the  truth  of  the 
very  principles  which  that  verdict  was  invoked  to 
establish.1 

The  state  of  things  is  not  materially  different 
in  the  case  of  ethics  and  theology.  There  also  the 
argument  from  '  an  authority  '  or  '  authorities  '  has  a 
legitimate  and  most  important  place  ;  there  also 
there  is  a  constant  inclination  to  extend  the  use  of 
the  argument  so  as  to  cover  the  fundamental  portions 
of  the  system  ;  and  there  also  this  endeavour,  when 
made,  seems  predestined  to  end  in  a  piece  of  circular 
reasoning.  I  can  hardly  illustrate  this  statement 
without  mentioning  dogma ;  though,  as  the  reader 
will  readily  understand,  I  have  not  the  slightest 
desire  to  do  anything  so  little  relevant  to  the 
purposes  of  this  Introduction  in  order  to  argue 
either  for  or  against  it.  As  to  the  reality  of  an 
infallible  guide,  in  whatever  shape  this  has  been 
accepted  by  various  sections  of  Christians,  I  have 
not  a  word  to  say.  As  part  of  a  creed  it  is  quite 
outside  the  scope  of  my  inquiry.  I  have  to  do  with 
it  only  if,  and  in  so  far  as,  it  is  represented,  not  as 
part  of  the  thing  to  be  believed,  but  as  one  of  the 
fundamental  reasons  for  believing  it ;  and  in  that 
position  I  think  it  inadmissible. 

Merely  as  an  illustration,  then,  let  us  consider  for 
a  moment  the  particular  case  of  Papal  Infallibility, 
an  example  which  may  be  regarded  with  the  greater 

1  Cf.  for  a  development  of  this  statement,  Philosophic  Doubt,  chap. 


224  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

impartiality  as  I  am  not,  I  suppose,  likely  to  have 
among  the  readers  of  these  Notes  many  by  whom  it 
is  accepted.  If  I  rightly  understand  the  teaching  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  theologians  upon  this  subject, 
the  following  propositions,  at  least,  must  be  accepted 
before  the  doctrine  of  Infallibility  can  be  regarded  as 
satisfactorily  proved  or  adequately  held  : — (i)  That 
the  words  '  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock,'  &c., 
and,  again,  ■  Feed  my  sheep,'  were  uttered  by  Christ ; 
and  that,  being  so  uttered,  were  of  Divine  authorship, 
and  cannot  fail.  (2)  That  the  meaning  of  these 
words  is — (a)  that  St.  Peter  was  endowed  with  a 
primacy  of  jurisdiction  over  the  other  Apostles  ;  {b) 
that  he  was  to  have  a  perpetual  line  of  successors, 
similarly  endowed  with  a  primacy  of  jurisdiction  ;  (c) 
that  these  successors  were  to  be  Bishops  of  Rome ; 
(d)  that  the  primacy  of  jurisdiction  carries  with  it 
the  certainty  of  Divine  '  assistance  '  ;  (e)  that  though 
this  '  assistance  '  does  not  ensure  either  the  morality, 
or  the  wisdom,  or  the  general  accuracy  of  the  Pontiff 
to  whom  it  is  given,  it  does  ensure  his  absolute 
inerrancy  whenever  he  shall,  ex  cathedra,  define  a 
doctrine  of  faith  or  morals ;  {/)  that  no  pronounce- 
ment can  be  regarded  as  6x  cathedra  unless  it  relates 
to  some  matter  already  thoroughly  sifted  and  con- 
sidered by  competent  divines. 

Now  it  is  no  part  of  my  business  to  ask  how  the 
six  sub-heads  contained  in  the  second  of  these 
propositions  can  by  any  legitimate  process  of 
exegesis  be  extracted  from  the  texts  mentioned  in 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  225 

the  first ;  nor  how,  if  they  be  accepted  to  the  full, 
they  can  obviate  the  necessity  for  the  complicated 
exercise  of  private  judgment  required  to  determine 
whether  any  particular  decision  has  or  has  not  been 
made  under  the  conditions  necessary  to  constitute  it 
a  pronouncement  ex  cathedra.  These  are  questions 
to  be  discussed  between  Roman  Catholic  and  non- 
Roman  Catholic  controversialists,  with  which  I  have 
nothing  here  to  do.  My  point  is,  that  the  first 
proposition  alone  is  so  absolutely  subversive  of  any 
purely  naturalistic  view  of  the  universe,  involves  so 
many  fundamental  elements  of  Christianity  (e.g.  the 
supernatural  character  of  Christ  and  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  first  and  fourth  Gospels,  with  all 
that  this  carries  with  it),  that  if  it  does  not  require 
the  argument  from  an  infallible  authority  for  its 
support,  it  seems  hard  to  understand  where  the 
necessity  for  that  argument  can  come  in  at  any 
fundamental  stage  of  apologetic  demonstration. 
And  that  this  proposition  does  not  require  infallible 
authority  for  its  support  seems  plain  from  the  fact 
that  it  does  itself  supply  the  main  ground  on  which 
the  existence  of  infallible  authority  is  believed. 

This  is  not,  and  is  not  intended  to  be,  an  objection 
to  the  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility  ;  it  is  not,  and  is 
not  intended  to  be,  a  criticism  by  means  of  example 
directed  against  other  doctrines  involving  the  exist- 
ence of  an  unerring  guide.  But  if  the  reader  will 
attentively  consider  the  matter  he  will,  I  think,  see 
that  whatever   be    the  truth   or  the  value   of  such 

Q 


226  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

doctrines,  they  can  never  be  used  to  supply  any 
fundamental  support  to  the  systems  of  which  they 
form  a  part  without  being  open  to  a  reply  like  that 
which  I  have  supposed  in  the  case  of  Papal  Infalli- 
bility. Indeed,  when  we  reflect  upon  the  character 
of  the  religious  books  and  of  the  religious  organi- 
sations through  which  Christianity  has  been  built 
up  ;  when  we  consider  the  variety  in  date,  in  occasion, 
in  authorship,  in  context,  in  spiritual  development, 
which  mark  the  first ;  the  stormy  history  and  the  in- 
evitable division  which  mark  the  second  ;  when  we, 
further,  reflect  on  the  astonishing  number  of  the  pro- 
blems, linguistic,  critical,  metaphysical,  and  historical 
which  must  be  settled,  at  least  in  some  preliminary 
fashion,  before  either  the  books  or  the  organisations 
can  be  supposed  entitled  by  right  of  rational  proof  to 
the  position  of  infallible  guides,  we  can  hardly  sup- 
pose that  we  were  intended  to  find  in  these  the 
logical  foundations  of  our  system  of  religious  beliefs, 
however  important  be  the  part  (and  can  it  be  exag- 
gerated ?)  which  they  were  destined  to  play  in  pro- 
ducing, fostering,  and  directing  it. 


VI 


Enough  has  now,  perhaps,  been  said  to  indicate 
the  relative  positions  of  Reason  and  Authority  in  the 
production  of  belief.  To  Reason  is  largely  due  the 
growth  of  new  and  the  sifting  of  old  knowledge  ;  the 


AUTHORITY  AND   REASON  227 

ordering,  and  in  part  the  discovery,  of  that  vast  body 
of  systematised  conclusions  which  constitute  so  large 
a  portion  of  scientific,  philosophical,  ethical,  political, 
and  theological  learning.  To  Reason  we  are  in  some 
measure  beholden,  though  not,  perhaps,  so  much  as 
we  suppose,  for  hourly  aid  in  managing  so  much  of 
the  trifling  portion  of  our  personal  affairs  entrusted 
to  our  care  by  Nature  as  we  do  not  happen  to  have 
already  surrendered  to  the  control  of  habit.  By 
Reason  also  is  directed,  or  misdirected,  the  public 
policy  of  communities  within  the  narrow  limits  of  de- 
viation permitted  by  accepted  custom  and  tradition. 
Of  its  immense  indirect  consequences,  of  the  part  it 
has  played  in  the  evolution  of  human  affairs  by  the 
disintegration  of  ancient  creeds,  by  the  alteration  of 
the  external  conditions  of  human  life,  by  the  pro- 
duction of  new  moods  of  thought,  or,  as  I  have 
termed  them,  psychological  climates,  we  can  in  this 
connection  say  nothing.  For  these  are  no  rational 
effects  of  reason  ;  the  causal  nexus  by  which  they 
are  bound  to  reason  has  no  logical  aspect ;  and  if 
reason  produces  them,  as  in  part  it  certainly  does,  it 
is  in  a  manner  indistinguishable  from  that  in  which 
similar  consequences  are  blindly  produced  by  the 
distribution  of  continent  and  ocean,  the  varying 
fertility  of  different  regions,  and  the  other  material 
surroundings  by  which  the  destinies  of  the  race  are 
modified. 

When   we   turn,    however,    from    the   conscious 
work  of  Reason  to  that  which  is  unconsciously  per- 


228  AUTHORITY  AND   REASON 

formed  for  us  by  Authority,  a  very  different  spec- 
tacle arrests  our  attention.  The  effects  of  the  first, 
prominent  as  they  are  through  the  dignity  of  their 
origin,  are  trifling  compared  with  the  all-pervad- 
ing influences  which  flow  from  the  second.  At 
every  moment  of  our  lives,  as  individuals,  as 
members  of  a  family,  of  a  party,  of  a  nation,  of  a 
Church,  of  a  universal  brotherhood,  the  silent,  con- 
tinuous, unnoticed  influence  of  Authority  moulds  our 
feelings,  our  aspirations,  and,  what  we  are  more  im- 
mediately concerned  with,  our  beliefs.  It  is  from 
Authority  that  Reason  itself  draws  its  most  important 
premises.  It  is  in  unloosing  or  directing  the  forces  of 
Authority  that  its  most  important  conclusions  find 
their  principal  function.  And  even  in  those  cases 
where  we  may  most  truly  say  that  our  beliefs  are 
the  rational  product  of  strictly  intellectual  processes, 
we  have,  in  all  probability,  only  got  to  trace  back  the 
thread  of  our  inferences  to  its  beginnings  in  order  to 
perceive  that  it  finally  loses  itself  in  some  general 
principle  which,  describe  it  as  we  may,  is  in  fact  due 
to  no  more  defensible  origin  than  the  influence  of 
Authority. 

Nor  is  the  comparative  pettiness  of  the  role  thus 
played  by  reasoning  in  human  affairs  a  matter  for 
i  egret.  Not  merely  because  we  are  ignorant  of  the 
data  required  for  the  solution,  even  of  very  simple 
problems  in  organic  and  social  life,  are  we  called  on 
to  acquiesce  in  an  arrangement  which,  to  be  sure, 


AUTHORITY   AND   REASON  229 

we  have  no  power  to  disturb  ;  nor  yet  because  these 
data,  did  we  possess  them,  are  too  complex  to  be 
dealt  with  by  any  rational  calculus  we  possess  or 
are  ever  likely  to  acquire  ;  but  because,  in  addition 
to  these  difficulties,  reasoning  is  a  force  most  apt  to 
divide  and  disintegrate  ;  and  though  division  and  dis- 
integration  may  often  be  the  necessary  preliminaries 
of  social  development,  still  more  necessary  are  the 
forces  which  bind  and  stiffen,  without  which  there 
would  be  no  society  to  develop. 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  we  can,  without  any 
great  expenditure  of  research,  accumulate  instances  in 
which  Authority  has  perpetuated  error  and  retarded 
progress;  for,  unluckily,  none  of  the  influences,  Reason 
least  of  all,  by  which  the  history  of  the  race  has  been 
moulded  have  been  productive  of  unmixed  good. 
The  springs  at  which  we  quench  our  thirst  are 
always  turbid.  Yet,  if  we  are  to  judge  with  equity 
between  these  rival  claimants,  we  must  not  forget 
that  it  is  Authority  rather  than  Reason  to  which,  in 
the  main,  we  owe,  not  religion  only,  but  ethics 
and  politics ;  that  it  is  Authority  which  supplies 
us  with  essential  elements  in  the  premises  of 
science ;  that  it  is  Authority  rather  than  Reason 
which  lays  deep  the  foundations  of  social  life  ;  that  it 
is  Authority  rather  than  Reason  which  cements  its 
superstructure.  And  though  it  may  seem  to  savour 
of  paradox,  it  is  yet  no  exaggeration  to  say,  that  if 
we  would  find  the  quality  in  which  we  most  notably 


230  AUTHORITY   AND   REASON 

excel  the  brute  creation,  we  should  look  for  it,  not 
so  much  in  our  faculty  of  convincing  and  being 
convinced  by  the  exercise  of  reasoning,  as  in 
our  capacity  for  influencing  and  being  influenced 
through  the  action  of  Authority. 


PART   IV 

SUGGESTIONS    TOWARDS 
A    PROVISIONAL     PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE      GROUNDWORK 

I 

We  have  now  considered  beliefs,  or  certain  important 
classes  of  them,  under  three  aspects.  We  have  con- 
sidered them  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  practical 
necessity  ;  from  that  of  their  philosophic  proof ;  and 
from  that  of  their  scientific  origin.  Inquiries  relating 
to  the  same  subject-matter  more  distinct  in  their 
character  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive.  It 
remains  for  us  to  consider  whether  it  is  possible  to 
extract  from  their  combined  results  any  general  view 
which  may  command  at  least  a  provisional  assent. 

It  is  evident,  of  course,  that  this  general  view,  if 
we  are  fortunate  enough  to  reach  it,  will  not  be  of 
the  nature  of  a  complete  or  adequate  philosophy. 
The  unification  of  all  belief  into  an  ordered  whole, 
compacted  into  one  coherent  structure  under  the 
stress  of  reason,  is  an  ideal  which  we  can  never 
abandon  ;  but  it  is  also  one  which,  in  the  present 
condition  of  our  knowledge,  perhaps  even  of  our 
faculties,  we  seem  incapable  of  attaining.  For  the 
moment  we  must  content  ourselves  with  something 


234  THE   GROUNDWORK 

less  than  this.  The  best  system  we  can  hope  to 
construct  will  suffer  from  gaps  and  rents,  from  loose 
ends  and  ragged  edges.  It  does  not,  however,  follow 
from  this  that  it  will  be  without  a  high  degree  of 
value  ;  and,  whether  valuable  or  worthless,  it  may  at 
least  represent  the  best  within  our  reach. 

By  the  best  I,  of  course,  mean  best  in  relation 
to  reflective  reason.  If  we  have  to  submit,  as  I 
think  we  must,  to  an  incomplete  rationalisation  of 
belief,  this  ought  not  to  be  because  in  a  fit  of 
intellectual  despair  we  are  driven  to  treat  reason  as 
an  illusion  ;  nor  yet  because  we  have  deliberately 
resolved  to  transfer  our  allegiance  to  irrational  or 
non-rational  inclination  ;  but  because  reason  itself 
assures  us  that  such  a  course  is,  at  the  lowest, 
the  least  irrational  one  open  to  us.  If  we  have  to 
find  our  way  over  difficult  seas  and  under  murky 
skies  without  compass  or  chronometer,  we  need  not 
on  that  account  allow  the  ship  to  drive  at  random. 
Rather  ought  we  to  weigh  with  the  more  anxious 
care  every  indication,  be  it  negative  or  positive,  and 
from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come,  which  can  help 
us  to  guess  at  our  position  and  to  lay  out  the  course 
which  it  behoves  us  to  steer. 

Now,  the  first  and  most  elementary  principle 
which  ought  to  guide  us  in  framing  any  provisional 
scheme  of  unification,  is  to  decline  to  draw  any  dis- 
tinction between  different  classes  of  belief  where  no 
relevant  distinction  can  as  a  matter  of  fact  be  dis- 
covered.    To  pursue  the  opposite  course  would  be 


THE   GROUNDWORK  235 

gratuitously  to  irrationalise  (to  coin  a  convenient 
word)  our  scheme  from  the  very  start ;  to  destroy, 
by  a  quite  arbitrary  treatment,  any  hope  of  its 
symmetrical  and  healthy  development.  And 
yet,  if  there  be  any  value  in  the  criticisms  con- 
tained in  the  Second  Part  of  these  Notes,  this  is 
precisely  the  mistake  into  which  the  advocates  of 
naturalism  have  invariably  blundered.  Without 
any  preliminary  analysis,  nay,  without  any  apparent 
suspicion  that  a  preliminary  analysis  was  necessary 
or  desirable,  they  have  chosen  to  assume  that 
scientific  beliefs  stand  not  only  upon  a  different, 
but  upon  a  much  more  solid,  platform  than  any 
others  ;  that  scientific  standards  supply  the  sole  test 
of  truth,  and  scientific  methods  the  sole  instruments 
of  discovery. 

The  reader  is  already  in  possession  of  some  of 
the  arguments  which  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  fatal 
to  such  claims,  and  it  is  not  necessary  here 
to  repeat  them.  What  is  more  to  our  present 
purpose  is  to  find  out  whether,  in  the  absence 
of  philosophic  proof,  judgments  about  the  phe- 
nomenal, and  more  particularly  about  the  material, 
world  possess  any  other  characteristics  which,  in 
our  attempt  at  a  provisional  unification  of  knowledge, 
forbid  us  to  place  them  on  a  level  with  other 
classes  of  belief.  That  there  are  differences  of 
some  sort  no  one,  I  imagine,  will  attempt  to  deny. 
But  are  they  of  a  kind  which  require  us  either 
to  give   any   special   precedence    to   science,  or  to 


236  THE   GROUNDWORK 

exclude  other  beliefs  altogether  from  our  general 
scheme  ? 

One  peculiarity  there  is  which  seems  at  first 
sight  effectually  to  distinguish  certain  scientific 
beliefs  from  any  which  belong,  say,  to  ethics  or 
theology  ;  a  peculiarity  which  may,  perhaps,  be  best 
expressed  by  the  word  '  inevitableness.'  Every- 
body has,  and  everybody  is  obliged  to  have,  some 
convictions  about  the  world  in  which  he  lives — con- 
victions which  in  their  narrow  and  particular  form 
(as  what  I  have  before  called  beliefs  of  perception, 
memory,  and  expectation)  guide  us  all,  children, 
savages,  and  philosophers  alike,  in  the  ordinary 
conduct  of  day-to-day  existence  ;  which,  when  gene- 
ralised and  extended,  supply  us  with  some  of  the 
leading  presuppositions  on  which  the  whole  fabric 
of  science  appears  logically  to  depend.  No  convic- 
tions quite  answering  to  this  description  can,  I  think, 
be  found  either  in  ethics,  aesthetics,  or  theology. 
Some  kind  of  morality  is,  no  doubt,  required  for  the 
stability  even  of  the  rudest  form  of  social  life.  Some 
sense  of  beauty,  some  kind  of  religion,  is,  perhaps, 
to  be  discovered  (though  this  is  disputed)  in  every 
human  community.  But  certainly  there  is  nothing 
in  any  of  these  great  departments  of  thought 
quite  corresponding  to  our  habitual  judgments  about 
the  things  we  see  and  handle  ;  judgments  which, 
with  reason  or  without  it,  all  mankind  are  practically 
compelled  to  entertain. 

Compare,  for  example,  the  central  truth  of  theo- 


THE   GROUNDWORK  237 

logy — 'There  is  a  God' — with  one  of  the  fundamental 
presuppositions  of  science  (itself  a  generalised  state- 
ment of  what  is  given  in  ordinary  judgments  of  per- 
ception)— '  There  is  an  independent  material  world.' 
I  am  myself  disposed  to  doubt  whether  so  good  a 
case  can  be  made  out  for  accepting  the  second  of  these 
propositions  as  can  be  made  out  for  accepting  the 
first.  But  while  it  has  been  found  by  many,  not  only 
possible,  but  easy,  to  doubt  the  existence  of  God, 
doubts  as  to  the  independent  existence  of  matter 
have  assuredly  been  confined  to  the  rarest  moments 
of  subjective  reflection,  and  have  dissolved  like 
summer  mists  at  the  first  touch  of  what  we  are 
pleased  to  call  reality. 

Now,  what  are  we  to  make  of  this  fact?  In  the 
opinion  of  many  persons,  perhaps  of  most,  it  affords 
a  conclusive  ground  for  elevating  science  to  a 
different  plane  of  certitude  from  that  on  which  other 
systems  of  belief  must  be  content  to  dwell.  The 
evidence  of  the  senses,  as  we  loosely  describe  these 
judgments  of  perception,  is  for  such  persons  the  best 
of  all  evidence  :  it  is  inevitable,  so  it  is  true  ;  seeing 
as  the  proverb  has  it,  is  indeed  believing.  This 
somewhat  crude  view,  however,  is  not  one  which  we 
can  accept.  The  coercion  exercised  in  the  production 
of  these  beliefs  is  not,  as  has  been  already  shown,  a 
rational  coercion.  Even  while  we  submit  to  it  we 
may  judge  it ;  and  in  the  very  act  of  believing  we 
may  be  conscious  that  the  strength  of  our  belief  is 


2 


238  THE   GROUNDWORK 

far  in  excess  of  anything  which  mere  reasoning  can 
justify. 

I  am  making  no  complaint  of  this  disparity 
between  belief  and  its  reasons.  On  the  contrary,  I 
have  already  noted  my  dissent  from  the  popular 
view  that  it  is  our  business  to  take  care  that,  as  far 
as  possible,  these  two  shall  in  every  case  be  nicely 
adjusted.  It  cannot,  I  contend,  be  our  duty  to  do 
that  in  the  name  of  reason  which,  if  it  were  done, 
would  bring  any  kind  of  rational  life  to  an  immediate 
standstill.  And  even  if  we  could  suppose  it  to  be 
our  duty,  it  is  not  one  which,  as  was  shown  in 
the  last  chapter,  we  are  practically  competent  to 
perform.  If  this  be  true  in  the  case  of  those 
beliefs  which  owe  their  origin  largely  to  Authority, 
or  the  non-rational  action  of  mind  on  mind,  not 
less  is  it  true  in  the  case  of  those  elementary 
judgments  which  arise  out  of  sense-stimulation. 
Whether  there  be  an  independent  material  universe 
or  not  may  be  open  to  philosophic  doubt.  But  that, 
if  it  exists,  it  is  expedient  that  the  belief  in  it 
should  be  accepted  with  a  credence  which  for 
all  practical  purposes  is  immediate  and  unwavering, 
admits,  I  think,  of  no  doubt  whatever.  If  we  could 
suppose  a  community  to  be  called  into  being  who,  in 
its  dealings  with  the  '  external  world,'  should  permit 
action  to  wait  upon  speculation,  and  require  all  its 
metaphysical  difficulties  to  be  solved  before  reposing 
full  belief  in  some  such  material  surroundings  as  those 
which   we  habitually  postulate,  its  members  would 


THE   GROUNDWORK 


239 


be  overwhelmed  by  a  ruin  more  rapid  and  more 
complete  than  that  which,  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
was  prophesied  for  those  who  should  succeed  in 
ousting  authority  from  its  natural  position  among 
the  causes  of  belief. 

But  supposing  this  be  so,  it  follows  necessarily, 
on  accepted  biological  principles,1  that  a  kind  of 
credulity  so  essential  to  the  welfare,  not  merely  of 
the  race  as  a  whole,  but  of  every  single  member  of 
it,  will  be  bred  by  elimination  and  selection  into  its 
inmost  organisation.  If  we  consider  what  must  have 
happened 2  at  that  critical  moment  in  the  history  of 
organic  development  when  first  conscious  judgments 
of  sense-perception  made  themselves  felt  as  important 
links  in  the  chain  connecting  nervous  irritability 
with  muscular  action,  is  it  not  plain  that  any 
individual  in  whom  such  judgments  were  habitually 
qualified  and  enfeebled  by  even  the  most  legitimate 
scepticism  would  incontinently  perish,  and  that  those 
only  would  survive  who  possessed,  and  could  pre- 
sumably transmit  to  their  descendants,  a  stubborn 
assurance  which  was  beyond  the  power  of  reasoning 
either  to  fortify  or  to  undermine  ? 

No  such  process  would  come  to  the  assistance  of 
other  faiths,  however  true,  which  were  the  growth  of 
higher  and  later  stages  of  civilised   development. 

1  At  the  first  glance,  the  reader  may  be  disposed  to  think  that  to 
bring  in  science  to  show  why  no  peculiar  certainty  should  attach  to 
scientific  premises  is  logically  inadmissible.  But  this  is  not  so  :  though 
the  converse  procedure,  by  which  scientific  conclusions  would  be  made 
to  establish  scientific  premises,  would,  no  doubt,  involve  an  argument 
in  a  circle.  •  Cf.  Note,  p.  304. 


24o  THE   GROUNDWORK 

For,  in  the  first  place,  such  faiths  are  not  necessarily, 
nor  perhaps  at  all,  an  advantage  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  In  the  second  place,  even  where  they  are 
an  advantage,  it  is  rather  to  the  community  as  a 
whole  in  its  struggles  with  other  communities,  than  to 
each  particular  individual  in  his  struggle  with  other 
individuals,  or  with  the  inanimate  forces  of  Nature. 
In  the  third  place,  the  whole  machinery  of  selection 
and  elimination  has  been  weakened,  if  not  paralysed, 
by  civilisation  itself.  And,  in  the  fourth  place,  were 
it  still  in  full  operation,  it  could  not,  through  the 
mere  absence  of  time  and  opportunity,  have  pro- 
duced any  sensible  effect  in  moulding  the  organism 
for  the  reception  of  beliefs  which,  by  hypothesis,  are 
the  recent  acquisition  of  a  small  and  advanced 
minority. 


We  are  now  in  a  position  to  answer  the  question 
put  a  few  pages  back.  What,  I  then  asked,  if  any, 
is  the  import,  from  our  present  point  of  view,  of  the 
universality  and  inevitableness  which  unquestionably 
attach  to  certain  judgments  about  the  world  of 
phenomena,  and  to  these  judgments  alone  ?  The 
answer  must  be,  that  these  peculiarities  have  no 
import.  They  exist,  but  they  are  irrelevant.  Faith 
or  assurance,  which,  if  not  in  excess  of  reason,  is  at 
least  independent  of  it,  seems  to  be  a  necessity  in 
every  great  department  of  knowledge  which  touches 
on    action  ;    and    what    great    department    is    there 


THE   GROUNDWORK  241 

which  does  not  ?  The  analysis  of  sense-experience 
teaches  us  that  we  require  it  in  our  ordinary  dealings 
with  the  material  world.  The  most  cursory  exami- 
nation into  the  springs  of  moral  action  shows  that  it  is 
an  indispensable  supplement  to  ethical  speculation. 
Theologians  are  for  the  most  part  agreed  that  without 
it  religion  is  but  the  ineffectual  profession  of  a  barren 
creed.  The  comparative  value,  however,  of  these 
faiths  is  not  to  be  measured  either  by  their  intensity 
or  by  the  degree  of  their  diffusion.  It  is  true  that 
all  men,  whatever  their  speculative  opinions,  enjoy 
a  practical  assurance  with  regard  to  what  they  see 
and  touch.  It  is  also  true  that  few  men  have  an 
assurance  equally  strong  about  matters  of  which 
their  senses  tell  them  nothing  immediately ;  and 
that  many  men  have  on  such  subjects  no  assurance 
at  all.  But  as  this  is  precisely  what  we  should 
expect  if,  in  the  progress  of  evolution,  the  need  for 
other  faiths  had  arisen  under  conditions  very 
different  from  those  which  produced  our  innate  and 
long-descended  confidence  in  sense-perception,  how 
can  we  regard  it  as  a  distinction  in  favour  of  the 
latter?  We  can  scarcely  reckon  universality  and 
necessity  as  badges  of  pre-eminence,  at  the  same 
moment  that  we  recognise  them  as  marks  of  the 
elementary  and  primitive  character  of  the  beliefs  to 
which  they  give  their  all-powerful,  but  none  the 
less  irrational,  sanction.  The  time  has  passed  for 
believing  that  the  further  we  go  back  towards  the 

R 


242  THE  GROUNDWORK 

•  state  of  nature,'  the  nearer  we  get  to  Virtue  and  to 
Truth. 

We  cannot,  then,  extract  out  of  the  coercive 
character  of  certain  unreasoned  beliefs  any  principle 
of  classification  which  shall  help  us  to  the  provi- 
sional philosophy  of  which  we  are  in  search. 
What  such  a  principle  would  require  us  to  include 
in  our  system  of  beliefs  contents  us  not.  What  it 
would  require  us  to  exclude  we  may  not  willingly 
part  with.  And  if,  dissatisfied  with  this  double 
deficiency,  we  examine  more  closely  into  its  character 
and  origin,  we  find,  not  only  that  it  is  without 
rational  justification — of  which  at  this  stage  of  our 
inquiry  we  have  no  right  to  complain — but  that 
the  very  account  which  it  gives  of  itself  precludes 
us  from  finding  in  it  even  a  temporary  place  of  intel- 
lectual repose. 

I  do  not,  be  it  observed,  make  it  a  matter  of 
complaint  that  those  who  erect  the  inevitable  judg- 
ments of  sense-perception  into  a  norm  or  standard 
of  right  belief  have  thereby  substituted  (however 
unconsciously)  psychological  compulsion  for  rational 
necessity ;  for,  as  rational  necessity  does  not,  so  far 
as  I  can  see,  carry  us  at  the  best  beyond  a  system  of 
mere  'solipsism,'  it  must,  somehow  or  other,  be 
supplemented  if  we  are  to  force  an  entrance  into 
any  larger  and  worthier  inheritance.  My  complaint 
rather  is,  that  having  asked  us  to  acquiesce  in  the 
guidance  of  non-rational  impulse,  they  should  then 
require  us  arbitrarily  to  narrow  down  the  impulses 


THE   GROUNDWORK  243 

which  we  may  follow  to  the  almost  animal  instincts 
lying  at  the  root  of  our  judgments  about  material 
phenomena.  It  is  surely  better — less  repugnant,  I 
mean,  to  reflective  reason — to  frame  for  ourselves 
some  wider  scheme  which,  though  it  be  founded  in 
the  last  resort  upon  our  needs,  shall  at  least  take 
account  of  other  needs  than  those  we  share  with  our 
brute  progenitors. 

And  here,  if  not  elsewhere,  I  may  claim  the 
support  of  the  most  famous  masters  of  speculation. 
Though  they  have  not,  it  may  be,  succeeded  in 
supplying  us  with  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the 
Universe,  at  least  the  Universe  which  they  have 
sought  to  explain  has  been  something  more  than  a 
mere  collection  of  hypostatised  sense-perceptions, 
packed  side  by  side  in  space,  and  following  each 
other  with  blind  uniformity  in  time.  All  the  great 
architects  of  systems  have  striven  to  provide  accom- 
modation within  their  schemes  for  ideas  of  wider 
sweep  and  richer  content ;  and  whether  they  desired 
to  support,  to  modify,  or  to  oppose  the  popular 
theology  of  their  day,  they  have  at  least  given 
hospitable  welcome  to  some  of  its  most  important 
conceptions. 

In  the  case  of  such  men  as  Leibnitz,  Kant, 
Hegel,  this  is  obvious  enough.  It  is  true,  I  think, 
even  in  such  a  case  as  that  of  Spinoza.  Philosophers, 
indeed,  may  find  but  small  satisfaction  in  his  methods 
or  conclusions.  They  may  see  but  little  to  admire  in 
his  elaborate  but  illusory  show  of  quasi-mathematical 

r  2 


244  THE   GROUNDWORK 

demonstration  ;  in  the  Nature  which  is  so  unlike  the 
Nature  of  the  physicist  that  we  feel  no  surprise  at 
its  being  also  called  God  ;  in  the  God  Who  is  so 
unlike  the  God  of  the  theologian  that  we  feel  no  sur- 
prise at  His  also  being  called  Nature  ;  in  the  a  priori 
metaphysic  which  evolves  the  universe  from  defini- 
tions ;  in  the  freedom  which  is  indistinguishable  from 
necessity ;  in  the  volition  which  is  indistinguishable 
from  intellect ;  in  the  love  which  is  indistinguish- 
able from  reasoned  acquiescence ;  in  the  universe 
from  which  have  been  expelled  purpose,  morality, 
beauty,  and  causation,  and  which  contains,  therefore, 
but  scant  room  for  theology,  ethics,  aesthetics,  and 
science.  In  the  two  hundred  years  and  more  which 
have  elapsed  since  the  publication  of  his  system,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  two  hundred  persons  have 
been  convinced  by  his  reasoning.  Yet  he  continues 
to  interest  the  world  ;  and  why  ?  Not,  surely,  as  a 
guide  through  the  mazes  of  metaphysics.  Not  as  a 
pioneer  of  '  higher '  criticism.  Least  of  all  because 
he  was  anything  so  commonplace  as  a  heretic  or  an 
atheist.  The  true  reason  appears  to  me  to  be  very 
different.  It  is  partly,  at  least,  because  in  despite 
of  his  positive  teaching  he  was  endowed  with  a 
religious  imagination  which,  in  however  abstract  and 
metaphysical  a  fashion,  illumined  the  whole  profitless 
bulk  of  inconclusive  demonstration  ;  which  enabled 
him  to  find  in  notions  most  remote  from  sense- 
experience  the  only  abiding  realities  ;  and  to  convert 
a  purely  rational  adhesion  to  the  conclusions  sup- 


THE   GROUNDWORK  245 

posed  to  flow  from  the  nature  of  an  inactive,  imper- 
sonal, and  unmoral  substance,  into  something  not 
quite  inaptly  termed  the  Love  of  God. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  objected  that  we  have  no 
right  to  claim  support  from  the  example  of  system- 
makers  with  whose  systems  we  do  not  happen  to 
agree.  How,  it  may  be  asked,  can  it  concern  us 
that  Spinoza  extracted  something  like  a  religion  out 
of  his  philosophy,  if  we  do  not  accept  his  philosophy  ? 
Or  that  Hegel  found  it  possible  to  hitch  large 
fragments  of  Christian  dogma  into  the  development 
of  the  '  Idea,'  if  we  are  not  convinced  by  his 
dialectic  ?  It  concerns  us,  I  reply,  inasmuch  as 
facts  like  these  furnish  fresh  confirmation  of  a  truth 
reached  before  by  another  method.  The  natural- 
istic creed,  which  merely  systematises  and  expands 
the  ordinary  judgments  of  sense-perception,  we  found 
by  direct  examination  to  be  quite  inadequate.  We 
now  note  that  its  inadequacy  has  been  commonly 
assumed  by  men  whose  speculative  genius  is  ad- 
mitted, who  have  seldom  been  content  to  allow 
that  the  world  of  which  they  had  to  give  an  account 
could  be  narrowed  down  to  the  naturalistic  pattern. 

in 

But  a  more  serious  objection  to  the  point  of  view 
here  adopted  remains  to  be  considered.  Is  not,  it 
will  be  asked,  the  whole  method  followed  throughout 
the  course  of  these  Notes  intrinsically  unsound  ?  Is 
it   not  substantially  identical  with  the  attempt,  not 


24b  THE   GROUNDWORK 

made  now  for  the  first  time,  to  rest  superstition  upon 
scepticism,  and  to  frame  our  creed,  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  rules  of  logic,  but  with  the  promptings 
of  desire?  It  begins  (may  it  not  be  said  ?)  by  dis- 
crediting reason ;  and  having  thus  guaranteed  its 
results  against  inconvenient  criticism,  it  proceeds  to 
make  the  needs  of  man  the  measure  of  '  objective ' 
reality,  to  erect  his  convenience  into  the  touchstone 
of  Eternal  Truth,  and  to  mete  out  the  Universe  on 
a  plan  authenticated  only  by  his  wishes. 

Now,  on  this  criticism  I  have,  in  the  first  place, 
to  observe  that  it  errs  in  assuming,  either  that  the 
object  aimed  at  in  the  preceding  discussion  is  to 
discredit  reason,  or  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  this  has 
been  its  effect.  On  the  contrary,  be  the  character 
of  our  conclusions  what  it  may,  they  have  at  least 
been  arrived  at  by  allowing  the  fullest  play  to 
free,  rational  investigation.  If  one  consequence 
of  this  investigation  has  been  to  diminish  the  im- 
portance commonly  attributed  to  reason  among  the 
causes  by  which  belief  is  produced,  it  is  by 
the  action  of  reason  itself  that  this  result  has 
been  brought  about.  If  another  consequence  has 
been  that  doubts  have  been  expressed  as  to  the 
theoretic  validity  of  certain  universally  accepted 
beliefs,  this  is  because  the  right  of  reason  to  deal 
with  every  province  of  knowledge,  untrammelled  by 
arbitrary  restrictions  or  customary  immunities,  has 
been  assumed  and  acted  upon.  If,  in  addition  to  all 
this,  we  have  been  incidentally  compelled  to  admit 


THE   GROUNDWORK  247 

that  as  yet  we  are  without  a  satisfactory  philosophy, 
the  admission  has  not  been  asked  for  in  the  interests 
either  of  scepticism  or  of  superstition.  Reason  is 
not  honoured  by  pretending  that  she  has  done  what 
as  a  matter  of  fact  is  still  undone  ;  nor  need  we  be 
driven  into  a  universal  license  of  credulity  by  recog- 
nising that  we  must  for  the  present  put  up  with  some 
working  hypothesis  which  falls  far  short  of  specula- 
tive perfection. 

But,  further,  is  it  true  to  say  that,  in  the  absence 
of  reason,  we  have  contentedly  accepted  mere  desire 
for  our  guide  ?  No  doubt  the  theory  here  advocated 
requires  us  to  take  account,  not  merely  of  premises 
and  their  conclusions,  but  of  needs  and  their  satisfac- 
tion. But  this  is  only  asking  us  to  do  explicitly  and 
on  system  what  on  the  naturalistic  theory  is  done 
unconsciously  and  at  random.  By  the  very  con- 
stitution of  our  being  we  seem  practically  driven  to 
assume  a  real  world  in  correspondence  with  our 
ordinary  judgments  of  perception.  A  harmony  of 
some  kind  between  our  inner  selves  and  the  universe 
of  which  we  form  a  part  is  thus  the  tacit  postulate 
at  the  root  of  every  belief  we  entertain  about  '  phe- 
nomena '  ;  and  all  that  I  now  contend  for  is,  that  a 
like  harmony  should  provisionally  be  assumed  be- 
tween that  universe  and  other  elements  in  our  nature 
which  are  of  a  later,  of  a  more  uncertain,  but  of  no 
ignobler,  growth. 

Whether  this  correspondence  is  best  described 
as    that    which   obtains   between  a   '  need '  and  its 


248  THE  GROUNDWORK 

'satisfaction,'  may  be  open  to  question.  But,  at  all 
events,  let  it  be  understood  that  if  the  relation  so 
described  is,  on  the  one  side,  something  different 
from  that  between  a  premise  and  its  conclusion,  so, 
on  the  other,  it  is  intended  to  be  equally  remote  from 
that  between  a  desire  and  its  fulfilment.  That  it  has 
not  the  logical  validity  of  the  first  I  have  already 
admitted,  or  rather  asserted.  That  it  has  not  the 
casual,  wavering,  and  purely  '  subjective  '  character 
of  the  second  is  not  less  true.  For  the  correspon- 
dence postulated  is  not  between  the  fleeting  fancies 
of  the  individual  and  the  immutable  verities  of  an 
unseen  world,  but  between  these  characteristics  of 
our  nature,  which  we  recognise  as  that  in  us  which, 
though  not  necessarily  the  strongest,  is  the  highest  ; 
which,  though  not  always  the  most  universal,  is 
nevertheless  the  best. 

But  because  this  theory  may  seem  alike  remote 
from  familiar  forms  both  of  dogmatism  and  sceptic- 
ism, and  because  I  am  on  that  account  the  more 
anxious  that  no  unmerited  plausibility  should  be 
attributed  to  it  through  any  obscurity  in  my  way  of 
presenting  it,  let  me  draw  out,  even  at  the  cost  of 
some  repetition,  a  brief  catalogue  of  certain  things 
which  may,  and  of  certain  other  things  which  may 
not,  be  legitimately  said  concerning  it. 

We  may  say  of  it,  then,  that  it  furnishes  us  with 
no  adequate  philosophy  of  religion.  But  we  may 
not  say  of  it  that  it  leaves  religion  worse,  or,  indeed, 
otherwise  provided  for  in  this  respect  than  science. 


THE   GROUNDWORK  249 

We  may  say  of  it  that  it  assumes  without  proof 
a  certain  consonance  between  the  '  subjective '  and 
the  '  objective '  ;  between  what  we  are  moved  to 
believe  and  what  in  fact  is.  We  may  not  say  that 
the  presuppositions  of  science  depend  upon  any  more 
solid,  or,  indeed,  upon  any  different,  foundation. 

We  may  say  of  it,  if  we  please,  that  it  gives  us  a 
practical,  but  not  a  theoretic,  assurance  of  the  truths 
with  which  it  is  concerned.  But,  if  so,  we  must 
describe  in  the  same  technical  language  our  assur- 
ance respecting  the  truths  of  the  material  world. 

We  may  say  of  it  that  it  accepts  provisionally  the 
theory,  based  on  scientific  methods,  which  traces  back 
the  origin  of  all  beliefs  to  causes  which,  for  the  most 
part,  are  non-rational,  and  which  carry  with  them  no 
warranty  that  they  will  issue  in  right  opinion.  But 
we  may  not  say  of  it  that  the  distinction  thus  drawn 
between  the  non-rational  causes  which  produce  the 
immediate  judgments  of  sense-perception,  and  those 
which  produce  judgments  in  the  sphere  of  ethics  or 
theology,  implies  any  superior  certitude  in  the  case  of 
the  former. 

We  may  say  of  it  that  it  admits  judgments  of 
sense-perception  to  be  the  most  inevitable,  but 
denies  them  to  be  the  most  worthy. 

We  may  say  of  it  generally,  that  as  it  assumes 
the  Whole,  of  which  we  desire  a  reasoned  knowledge, 
to  include  human  consciousness  as  an  element,  it 
refuses  to  regard  any  system  which,  like  Naturalism, 
leaves  large  tracts  and  aspects  of  that  consciousness 


250  THE   GROUNDWORK 

unaccounted  for  and  derelict  as  other  than,  to  that 
extent,  at  least,  irrational  ;  and  that  it  utterly  declines 
to  circumscribe  the  Knowable  by  frontiers  whose 
delimitation  Reason  itself  assures  us  can  be  justified 
on  no  rational  principle  whatsoever. 


25] 


CHAPTER   II 

BELIEFS   AND    FORMULAS 


After  these  hints  towards  the  formation  of  a  pro- 
visional philosophy,  it  may  perhaps  be  convenient, 
before  proceeding  to  say  what  remains  to  be  said  on 
the  character  of  the  beliefs  for  which  it  may  provide 
a  foundation,  to  interpolate  some  observations  on  the 
formal  side  of  their  historical  development,  which 
will  not  only  serve,  I  hope,  to  make  clearer  the 
general  scheme  here  advocated,  but  may  help  to 
solve  certain  difficulties  which  have  sometimes  been 
felt  in  the  interpretation  of  theological  and  ecclesias- 
tical history. 

Assuming,  as  we  do,  that  Knowledge  exists,  we 
can  hardly  do  otherwise  than  make  the  further  as- 
sumption that  it  has  grown  and  must  yet  further 
grow.  In  what  manner,  then,  has  that  growth  been 
accomplished  ?  What  are  the  external  signs  of  its 
successive  stages,  the  marks  of  its  gradual  evolution  ? 
One,  at  least,  must  strike  all  who  have  surveyed, 
even  with  a  careless  eye,  the  course  of  human  specu- 
lation—  I  mean  the  recurring  process  by  which  the 
explanations  or  explanatory  formulas  in  terms  of 
which  mankind  endeavour  to  comprehend  the  uni- 


252  BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS 

verse  are  formed,  are  shattered,  and  then  in  some 
new  shape  are  formed  again.  It  is  not,  as  we  some- 
times represent  it,  by  the  steady  addition  of  tier  to 
tier  that  the  fabric  of  knowledge  uprises  from  its 
foundation.  It  is  not  by  mere  accumulation  of 
material,  nor  even  by  a  plant-like  development,  that 
our  beliefs  grow  less  inadequate  to  the  truths  which 
they  strive  to  represent.  Rather  are  we  like  one 
who  is  perpetually  engaged  in  altering  some  ancient 
dwelling  in  order  to  satisfy  new-born  needs.  The 
ground-plan  of  it  is  being  perpetually  modified.  We 
build  here  ;  we  pull  down  there.  One  part  is  kept 
in  repair,  another  part  is  suffered  to  decay.  And 
even  those  portions  of  the  structure  which  may  in 
themselves  appear  quite  unchanged,  stand  in  such 
new  relations  to  the  rest,  and  are  put  to  such  different 
uses,  that  they  would  scarce  be  recognised  by  their 
original  designer. 

Yet  even  this  metaphor  is  inadequate,  and  per- 
haps misleading.  We  shall  more  accurately  con- 
ceive the  true  history  of  knowledge  if  we  represent 
it  under  the  similitude  of  a  plastic  body  whose  shape 
and  size  are  in  constant  process  of  alteration  through 
the  operation  both  of  external  and  of  internal  forces. 
The  internal  forces  are  those  of  reason.  The  ex- 
ternal forces  correspond  to  those  non-rational  causes 
on  whose  importance  I  have  already  dwelt.  Each 
of  these  agencies  may  be  supposed  to  act  both  by 
way  of  destruction  and  of  addition.  By  their  joint 
operation    new  material    is  deposited  at  one  point, 


BELIEFS  AND  FORMULAS  253 

old  material  is  eroded  at  another  ;  and  the  whole 
mass,  whose  balance  has  been  thus  disturbed,  is 
constantly  changing  its  configuration  and  settling 
towards  a  new  position  of  equilibrium,  which  it  may 
approach,  but  can  never  quite  attain. 

We  must  not,  however,  regard  this  body  of  beliefs 
as  being  equally  mobile  in  all  its  parts.  Certain 
elements  in  it  have  the  power  of  conferring  on  the 
whole  something  in  the  nature  of  a  definite  struc- 
ture. These  are  known  as  'theories,'  'hypotheses,' 
'generalisations,'  and  'explanatory  formulas'  in 
general.  They  represent  beliefs  by  which  other 
beliefs  are  co-ordinated.  They  supply  the  framework 
in  which  the  rest  of  knowledge  is  arranged.  Their 
right  construction  is  the  noblest  work  of  reason  ;  and 
without  their  aid  reason,  if  it  could  be  exercised  at 
all,  would  itself  be  driven  from  particular  to  particular 
in  helpless  bewilderment. 

Now  the  action  and  reaction  between  these 
formulas  and  their  contents  is  the  most  salient,  and  in 
some  respects  the  most  interesting,  fact  in  the  history 
of  thought.  Called  into  being,  for  the  most  part,  to 
justify,  or  at  least  to  organise,  pre-existing  beliefs, 
they  can  seldom  perform  their  office  without  modify- 
ing part,  at  least,  of  their  material.  While  they  give 
precision  to  what  would  otherwise  be  indeterminate, 
and  a  relative  permanence  to  what  would  otherwise 
be  in  a  state  of  flux,  they  do  so  at  the  cost  of  some 
occasional  violence  to  the  beliefs  with  which  they 
deal.     Some  of  these  are  distorted  to  make  them 


254  BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS 

fit  into  their  predestined  niches.  Others,  more 
refractory,  are  destroyed  or  ignored.  Even  in 
science,  where  the  beliefs  that  have  to  be  ac- 
counted for  have  often  a  native  vigour  born  of  the 
imperious  needs  of  sense-perception,  we  are  some- 
times disposed  to  see,  not  so  much  what  is  visible, 
as  what  theory  informs  us  ought  to  be  seen.  While 
in  the  region  of  aesthetic  (to  take  another  example), 
where  belief  is  of  feebler  growth,  the  inclination  to 
admire  what  squares  with  some  current  theory  of 
the  beautiful,  rather  than  with  what  appeals  to  any 
real  feeling  for  beauty,  is  so  common  that  it  has 
ceased  even  to  amuse. 

But  this  reaction  of  formulas  on  the  beliefs 
which  they  co-ordinate  or  explain  is  but  the  first 
stage  in  the  process  we  are  describing.  The  next 
is  the  change,  perhaps  even  the  destruction,  of  the 
formula  itself  by  the  victorious  forces  that  it  has  pre- 
viously held  in  check.  The  plastic  body  of  belief, 
or  some  portion  of  it,  under  the  growing  stress  of 
external  and  internal  influences,  breaks  through, 
it  may  be  with  destructive  violence,  the  barriers  by 
which  it  was  at  one  time  controlled.  A  new  theory 
has  to  be  formed,  a  new  arrangement  of  knowledge 
has  to  be  accepted,  and  under  changed  conditions 
the  same  cycle  of  not  unfruitful  changes  begins 
again. 

I  do  not  know  that  any  illustration  of  this 
familiar  process  is  required,  for  in  truth  such  examples 
are  abundant  in  every  department  of  Knowledge. 


BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS  255 

As  chalk  consists  of  little  else  but  the  remains  of 
dead  animalcule,  so  the  history  of  thought  consists 
of  little  else  but  an  accumulation  of  abandoned  ex- 
planations. In  that  vast  cemetery  every  thrust  of 
the  shovel  turns  up  some  bone  that  once  formed  part 
of  a  living  theory  ;  and  the  biography  of  most  of 
these  theories  would,  I  think,  confirm  the  general 
account  which  I  have  given  of  their  birth,  maturity, 
and  decay. 

II 

Now  we  may  well  suppose  that  under  existing 
circumstances  death  is  as  necessary  in  the  intellectual 
world  as  it  is  in  the  organic.  It  may  not  always 
result  in  progress,  but  without  it,  doubtless,  progress 
would  be  impossible  ;  and  if,  therefore,  the  constant 
substitution  of  one  explanation  for  another  could  be 
effected  smoothly,  and  as  it  were  in  silence,  without 
disturbing  anything  beyond  the  explanations  them- 
selves, it  need  cause  in  general  neither  anxiety  nor 
regret.  But,  unfortunately,  in  the  case  of  Theology, 
this  is  not  always  the  way  things  happen.  There, 
as  elsewhere,  theories  arise,  have  their  day,  and  fall  ; 
but  there,  far  more  than  elsewhere,  do  these  theories 
in  their  fall  endanger  other  interests  than  their  own. 
More  than  one  reason  may  be  given  for  this  differ- 
ence. To  begin  with,  in  Science  the  beliefs  of  sense- 
perception,  which,  as  I  have  implied,  are  commonly 
vigorous  enough  to  resist  the  warping  effect  of  theory, 
even  when  the  latter  is  in  its  full  strength,  are  not  im- 


256  BELIEFS  AND   FORMULAS 

perilled  by  its  decay.  They  provide  a  solid  nucleus 
of  unalterable  conviction,  which  survives  uninjured 
through  all  the  mutations  of  intellectual  fashion.  We 
do  not  require  the  assistance  of  hypotheses  to  sustain 
our  faith  in  what  we  see  and  hear.  Speaking  broadly, 
that  faith  is  unalterable  and  self-sufficient. 

Theology  is  less  happily  situated.  There  it  often 
happens  that  when  a  theory  decays,  the  beliefs  to 
which  it  refers  are  infected  by  a  contagious  weak- 
ness. The  explanation  and  the  thing  explained  are 
mutually  dependent.  They  are  animated  as  it  were 
with  a  common  life,  and  there  is  always  a  danger 
lest  they  should  be  overtaken  by  a  common  destruc- 
tion. 

Consider  this  difference  between  Science  and 
Theology  in  the  light  of  the  following  illustration. 
The  whole  instructed  world  were  quite  recently 
agreed  that  heat  was  a  form  of  matter.  With  equal 
unanimity  they  now  hold  that  it  is  a  mode  of  motion. 
These  opinions  are  not  only  absolutely  inconsistent, 
but  the  change  from  one  to  the  other  is  revolutionary, 
and  involves  the  profoundest  modification  of  our 
general  views  of  the  material  world.  Yet  no  one's 
confidence  in  the  existence  of  some  quality  in  things 
by  which  his  sensations  of  warmth  are  produced  is 
thereby  disturbed  ;  and  we  may  hold  either  of  these 
theories,  or  both  of  them  in  turn,  or  no  theory  at  all, 
without  endangering  the  stability  of  our  scientific  faith. 

Compare  with  this  example  drawn  from  physics 
one  of  a  very  different  kind  drawn  from  theology. 


BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS  257 

If  there  be  a  spiritual  experience  to  which  the  history 
of  religion  bears  witness,  it  is  that  of  Reconcilia- 
tion with  God.  If  there  be  an  'objective'  cause  to 
which  the  feeling  is  confidently  referred,  it  is  to  be 
found  in  the  central  facts  of  the  Christian  story. 
Now,  incommensurable  as  the  subject  is  with  that 
touched  on  in  the  last  paragraph,  they  resemble 
each  other  at  least  in  this — that  both  have  been  the 
theme  of  much  speculation,  and  that  the  accounts  of 
them  which  have  satisfied  one  generation,  to  an- 
other have  seemed  profitless  and  empty.  But  there 
the  likeness  ends.  In  the  physical  case,  the  feeling 
of  heat  and  the  inward  assurance  that  it  is  really  con- 
nected with  some  quality  in  the  external  body  from 
which  we  suppose  ourselves  to  derive  it,  survive 
every  changing  speculation  as  to  the  nature  of  that 
quality'  and  the  mode  of  its  operation.  In  the 
spiritual  case,  the  sense  of  Reconciliation  connected 
by  the  Christian  conscience  with  the  life  and  death 
of  Christ  seems  in  many  cases  to  be  bound  up  with 
the  explanations  of  the  mystery  which  from  time  to 
time  have  been  hazarded  by  theological  theorists. 
And  as  these  explanations  have  fallen  out  of  favour, 
the  truth  to  be  explained  has  too  often  been  aban- 
doned also. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  press  the  subject  further  ; 
and  I  have  neither  the  right  in  these  Notes  to  assume 
the  truth  of  particular  theological  doctrines,  nor  is 
it  my  business  to  attempt  to  prove  them.  But  this 
much   more   I   may  perhaps   be   allowed  to  say   by 

s 


258  BELIEFS  AND   FORMULAS 

way  of  parenthesis.  If  the  point  of  view  which  this 
Essay  is  intended  to  recommend  be  accepted,  the 
precedent  set,  in  the  first  of  the  above  examples,  by 
science  is  the  one  which  ought  to  be  followed  by 
theology.  No  doubt,  when  a  belief  is  only  accepted 
as  the  conclusion  of  some  definite  inferential  process, 
with  that  process  it  must  stand  or  fall.  If,  for  in- 
stance, we  believe  that  there  is  hydrogen  in  the  sun, 
solely  because  that  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us  by 
certain  arguments  based  upon  spectroscopic  observa- 
tions, then,  if  these  arguments  should  ever  be  dis- 
credited, the  belief  in  solar  hydrogen  would,  as  a 
necessary  consequence,  be  shaken  or  destroyed. 
But  in  cases  where  the  belief  is  rather  the  occasion 
of  an  hypothesis  than  a  conclusion  from  it,  the 
destruction  of  the  hypothesis  may  be  a  reason  for 
devising  a  new  one,  but  is  certainly  no  reason  for 
abandoning  the  belief.  Nor  in  science  do  we  ever 
take  any  other  view.  We  do  not,  for  example, 
step  over  a  precipice  because  we  are  dissatisfied 
with  all  the  attempts  to  account  for  gravitation. 
In  theology,  however,  experience  does  sometimes 
lean  too  timidly  on  theory,  and  when  in  the 
course  of  time  theory  decays,  it  drags  down  ex- 
perience in  its  fall.  How  many  persons  are  there 
who,  because  they  dislike  the  theories  of  Atone- 
ment propounded,  say,  by  Anselm,  or  by  Grotius, 
or  the  versions  of  these  which  have  imbedded 
themselves  in  the  devotional  literature  of  Western 
Europe,  feel  bound  '  in  reason '  to  give  up  the  doc- 


BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS  259 

trine  itself  ?  Because  they  cannot  compress  within 
the  rigid  limits  of  some  semi-legal  formula  a  mystery 
which,  unless  it  were  too  vast  for  our  full  intellectual 
comprehension,  would  surely  be  too  narrow  for  our 
spiritual  needs,  the  mystery  itself  is  to  be  rejected  ! 
Because  they  cannot  contrive  to  their  satisfaction  a 
system  of  theological  jurisprudence  which  shall  in- 
clude Redemption  as  a  leading  case,  Redemption  is 
no  longer  to  be  counted  among  the  consolations  of 
mankind  ! 


in 

There  is,  however,  another  reason  beyond  the 
natural  strength  of  the  judgments  due  to  sense-per- 
ception which  tends  to  make  the  change  or  abandon- 
ment of  explanatory  formulas  a  smoother  operation 
in  science  than  it  is  in  theology  ;  and  this  reason  is 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  Religion  works,  and,  to 
produce  its  full  results,  must  needs  work,  through 
the  agency  of  organised  societies.  It  has,  therefore, 
a  social  side,  and  from  this  its  speculative  side  can- 
not, I  believe,  be  kept  wholly  distinct.  For  although 
feeling  is  the  effectual  bond  of  all  societies,  these 
feelings  themselves,  it  would  seem,  cannot  be  pro- 
perly developed  without  the  aid  of  something  which 
is,  or  which  does  duty  as,  a  reason.  They  require 
some  alien  material  on  which,  so  to  speak,  they  may 
be  precipitated  ;  round  which  they  may  crystallise 
and  coalesce.  In  the  case  of  political  societies  this 
reason  is  founded  on  identity  of  race,  of  language, 


26o  BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS 

of  country,  or  even  of  mere  material  interest.  But 
when  the  religious  society  and  the  political  are  not, 
as  in  primitive  times,  based  on  a  common  ground, 
the  desired  reason  can  scarcely  be  looked  for  else- 
where, and,  in  fact,  never  is  looked  for  elsewhere, 
than  in  the  acceptance  of  common  religious  formulas. 
Whence  it  comes  about  that  these  formulas  have  to 
fulfil  two  functions  which  are  not  merely  distinct  but 
incomparable.  They  are  both  a  statement  of  theo- 
logical conclusions  and  the  symbols  of  a  corporate 
unity.  They  represent  at  once  the  endeavour  to 
systematise  religious  truth  and  to  organise  religious 
associations  ;  and  they  are  therefore  subject  to  two 
kinds  of  influence,  and  involve  two  kinds  of  obliga- 
tion, which,  though  seldom  distinguished,  are  never 
identical,  and  may  sometimes  even  be  opposed. 

The  distinction  is  a  simple  one  ;  but  the  refusal 
to  recognise  it  has  been  prolific  in  embarrassments, 
both  for  those  who  have  assumed  the  duty  of  con- 
triving symbols,  and  for  those  on  whom  has  fallen  the 
burden  of  interpreting  them.  The  rage  for  defining1 
which  seized  so  large  a  portion  of  Christendom,  both 
Roman  and  non-Roman,  during  the  Reformation 
troubles,  and  the  fixed  determination  to  turn  the 
definitions,  when  made,  into  impassable  barriers  be- 
tween hostile  ecclesiastical  divisions,  are  among  the 
most  obvious,  but  not,  I  think,  among  the  most 
satisfactory,  facts  in  modern  religious  history.  To 
the    definitions    taken    simply   as    well-intentioned 

1  Cf.  Note  at  end  of  next  chapter. 


BELIEFS   AND    FORMULAS  261 

efforts  to  make  clear  that  which  was  obscure,  and 
systematic  that  which  was  confused,  I  raise  no  objec- 
tions. Of  the  practical  necessity  for  some  formal 
basis  of  Christian  co-operation  I  am,  as  I  have  said, 
most  firmly  convinced.  But  not  every  formula  which 
represents  even  the  best  theological  opinion  of  its 
age  is  therefore  fitted  to  unite  men  for  all  time  in  the 
furtherance  of  common  religious  objects,  or  in  the 
support  of  common  religious  institutions  ;  and  the 
error  committed  in  this  connection  by  the  divines 
of  the  Reformation,  and  the  counter-Reformation, 
largely  consisted  in  the  mistaken  supposition  that 
symbols  and  decrees,  in  whose  very  elaboration 
could  be  read  the  sure  prophecy  of  decay,  were 
capable  of  providing  a  convenient  framework  for  a 
perpetual  organisation. 

It  is,  however,  beyond  the  scope  of  these  Notes 
to  discuss  the  dangers  which  the  inevitable  use  of 
theological  formulas  as  the  groundwork  of  ecclesias- 
tical co-operation  may  have  upon  Christian  unity, 
important  and  interesting  as  the  subject  is.  I  am 
properly  concerned  solely  with  the  other  side  of  the 
same  shield,  namely,  the  dangers  with  which  this 
inevitable  combination  of  theory  and  practice  may 
threaten  the  smooth  development  of  religious  beliefs 
— dangers  which  do  not  follow  in  the  parallel  case  of 
science,  where  no  such  combination  is  to  be  found. 
The  doctrines  of  science  have  not  got  to  be  discussed 
amid  the  confusion  and  clamour  of  the  market-place  ; 
they  stir  neither  hate  nor  love  ;  the  fortunes  of  no 


202  BELIEFS   AND   FORMULAS 

living  polity  are  bound  up  with  them  ;  nor  is  there 
any  danger  lest  they  become  petrified  into  party 
watchwords.  Theology  is  differently  situated. 
There  the  explanatory  formula  may  be  so  histori- 
cally intertwined  with  the  sentiments  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  ecclesiastical  organisation  ;  the  heat  and 
pressure  of  ancient  conflicts  may  have  so  welded 
them  together,  that  to  modify  one  and  leave  the 
other  untouched  seems  well-nigh  impossible.  Yet 
even  in  such  cases  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  unex- 
pectedly the  most  difficult  adjustments  are  sometimes 
effected  ;  how,  partly  by  the  conscious,  and  still  more 
by  the  unconscious,  wisdom  of  mankind ;  by  a  little 
kindly  forgetfulness  ;  by  a  few  happy  inconsistencies  ; 
by  methods  which  might  not  always  bear  the  scrutiny 
of  the  logician,  though  they  may  well  be  condoned 
by  the  philosopher,  the  changes  required  by  the 
general  movement  of  belief  are  made  with  less  fric- 
tion and  at  a  smaller  cost — even  to  the  enlightened 
— than  might,  perhaps,  antecedently  have  been 
imagined. 


263 


CHAPTER   III 

BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,    AND    REALITIES 
I 

The  road  which  theological  thought  is  thus  compelled 
to  travel  would,  however,  be  rougher  even  than  it  is 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  large  changes  and  adap- 
tations of  belief  are  possible  within  the  limits  of  the 
same  unchanging  formulas.  This  is  a  fact  to  which 
it  has  not  been  necessary  hitherto  to  call  the  reader's 
attention.  It  has  been  more  convenient,  and  so  far 
not,  I  think,  misleading,  to  follow  familiar  usage, 
and  to  assume  that  identity  of  statement  involves 
identity  of  belief  ;  that  when  persons  make  the  same 
assertions  intelligently  and  in  good  faith  they  mean 
the  same  thing.  But  this  on  closer  examination  is 
seen  not  to  be  the  case.  In  all  branches  of  know- 
ledge abundant  examples  are  to  be  discovered  of 
statements  which  do  not  fall  into  the  cycle  of  change 
described  in  the  last  section,  which  no  lapse  of  time 
nor  growth  of  learning  would  apparently  require  us 
to  revise.  But  in  every  case  it  will,  I  think,  be  found 
that,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of  purely  abstract 
propositions,  these  statements,  themselves  unmoved, 
represent  a  moving  body  of  belief,  varying  from  one 


264        BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

period  of  life  to  another,  from  individual  to  individual, 
and  from  generation  to  generation. 

Take  an  instance  at  random.  I  suppose  that 
the  world,  so  long  as  it  thinks  it  worth  while  to  have 
an  opinion  at  all  upon  the  subject,  will  continue  to 
accept  without  amendment  the  assertion  that  Julius 
Caesar  was  murdered  at  Rome  in  the  first  century 
B.C.  But  are  we,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  this 
proposition  must  mean  the  same  thing  in  the  mouths 
of  all  who  use  it  ?  Surely  not.  Even  if  we  refuse 
to  take  account  of  the  associated  sentiments  which 
give  a  different  colour  in  each  man's  eyes  to  the 
same  intellectual  judgment,  we  cannot  ignore  the 
varying  positions  which  the  judgment  itself  may 
hold  in  different  systems  of  belief.  It  is  manifestly 
absurd  to  say  that  a  statement  about  the  mode  and 
time  of  Caesar's  death  has  the  same  significance  for 
the  schoolboy  who  learns  it  as  a  line  in  a  memoria 
tcchnica,  and  the  historian  (if  such  there  be)  to 
whom  it  represents  a  turning-point  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  deny  that  any 
alteration  in  our  views  on  the  nature  of  Death,  or  on 
the  nature  of  Man,  must  necessarily  alter  the  import 
of  a  proposition  which  asserts  of  a  particular  man 
that  he  suffered  a  particular  kind  of  death. 

This  may  perhaps  seem  to  be  an  unprofitable 
subtlety  ;  and  so,  to  be  sure,  in  this  particular  case, 
it  is.  But  a  similar  reflection  is  of  obvious  im- 
portance when  we  come  to  consider,  for  example, 
such  propositions  as  '  there  is  a  God,'  or  '  there  is 


BELIEFS,   FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES         265 

a  world  of  material  things.'  Both  these  statements 
might  be,  and  are,  accepted  by  the  rudest  savage 
and  by  the  most  advanced  philosopher.  They 
may,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  continue  to  be  ac- 
cepted by  men  in  all  stages  of  culture  till  the  last 
inhabitant  of  a  perishing  world  is  frozen  into  un- 
consciousness. Yet  plainly  the  savage  and  the 
philosopher  use  these  words  in  very  different 
meanings.  From  the  tribal  deity  of  early  times  to 
the  Christian  God,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  the  Hegelian 
Absolute  ;  from  Matter  as  conceived  by  primitive 
man  to  Matter  as  it  is  conceived  by  the  modern 
physicist,  how  vast  the  interval !  The  formulas  are 
the  same,  the  beliefs  are  plainly  not  the  same.  Nay, 
so  wide  are  they  apart,  that  while  to  those  who  hold 
the  earlier  view  the  later  would  be  quite  meaning- 
less, it  may  require  the  highest  effort  of  sympathetic 
imagination  for  those  whose  minds  are  steeped  in 
the  later  view  to  reconstruct,  even  imperfectly,  the 
substance  of  the  earlier.  The  civilised  man  cannot 
fully  understand  the  savage,  nor  the  grown  man  the 
child. 


Now  a  question  of  some  interest  is  suggested  by 
this  reflection.  Can  we,  in  the  face  of  the  wide 
divergence  of  meaning  frequently  conveyed  by  the 
same  formula  at  different  times,  assert  that  what 
endures  in  such  cases  is  anything  more  than  a  mere 
husk  or  shell  ?     Is  it  more  than  the  mould  into  which 


266         BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

any  metal,  base  or  precious,  may  be  poured  at  will  ? 
Does  identity  of  expression  imply  anything  which 
deserves  to  be  described  as  community  of  belief? 
Are  we  here  dealing  with  things,  or  only  with  words  ? 
In  order  to  answer  this  question  we  must  have 
some  idea,  in  the  first  place,  of  the  relation  of  Language 
to  Belief,  and,  in  the  second  place,  of  the  relation  of 
Belief  to  Reality.  That  the  relation  between  the  first 
of  these  pairs  is  of  no  very  precise  or  definite  kind  I 
have  already  indicated.  And  the  fact  is  so  obvious 
that  it  would  hardly  be  worth  while  to  insist  on  it 
were  it  not  that  Formal  Logic  and  conventional 
usage  both  proceed  on  exactly  the  opposite  supposi- 
tion. They  assume  a  constant  relation  between 
the  symbol  and  the  thing  symbolised ;  and  they 
consider  that  so  long  as  a  word  is  used  (as  the  phrase 
is)  '  in  the  same  sense,'  it  corresponds,  or  ought  to 
correspond,  to  the  same  thought.  But  this  is  an 
artificial  simplification  of  the  facts  ;  a  convention, 
most  convenient  for  certain  purposes,  but  seldom  or 
never  observed  when  we  are  expressing  opinions 
about  concrete  realities.  If  in  the  sweat  of  our 
brow  we  can  secure  that  inevitable  differences  of 
meaning  do  not  vitiate  the  particular  argument  in 
hand,  we  have  done  all  that  logic  requires,  and  all 
that  lies  in  us  to  accomplish.  Not  only  would  more 
be  impossible,  but  more  would  most  certainly  be 
undesirable.  Incessant  variation  in  the  uses  to 
which  we  put  the  same  expression  is  absolutely 
necessary  if  the  complexity  of  the  Universe  is,  even 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,    AND   REALITIES         267 

in  the  most  imperfect  fashion,  to  find  a  response  in 
thought.  If  terms  were  counters,  each  purporting 
always  to  represent  the  whole  of  one  unalterable 
aspect  of  reality,  language  would  become,  not  the 
servant  of  thought,  nor  even  its  ally,  but  its  tyrant. 
The  wealth  of  our  ideas  would  be  limited  by  the 
poverty  of  our  vocabulary.  Science  could  not 
flourish,  nor  Literature  exist.  All  play  of  mind,  all 
variety,  all  development  would  perish  ;  and  mankind 
would  spend  its  energies,  not  in  using  words,  but  in 
endeavouring  to  define  them. 

It  was  this  logical  nightmare  which  oppressed 
the  intellect  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  schoolmen 
have  been  attacked  for  not  occupying  themselves 
with  experimental  observation,  which,  after  all,  was 
no  particular  business  of  theirs  ;  for  indulging  in 
excessive  subtleties — surely  no  great  crime  in  a 
metaphysician  ;  and  for  endeavouring  to  combine 
the  philosophy  and  the  theology  of  their  day  into 
a  coherent  whole — an  attempt  which  seems  to  me  to 
be  entirely  praiseworthy.  A  better  reason  for  their 
not  having  accomplished  the  full  promise  of  their 
genius  is  to  be  found  in  the  assumption  which  lies  at 
the  root  of  their  interminable  deductions,  namely, 
that  language  is,  or  can  be  made,  what  logic  by  a 
convenient  convention  supposes  it  to  be,  and  that 
if  it  were  so  made,  it  would  be  an  instrument  better 
fitted  on  that  account  to  deal  with  the  infinite 
variety  of  the  actual  world. 


26S         BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

III 

If  language,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case, 
hangs  thus  loosely  to  the  belief  which  it  endeavours 
to  express,  how  closely  does  the  belief  fit  to  the 
reality  with  which  it  is  intended  to  correspond  ?  To 
hear  some  persons  talk  one  would  really  suppose 
that  the  enlightened  portion  of  mankind,  i.e.  those 
who  happen  to  agree  with  them,  were  blessed  with 
a  precise  knowledge  respecting  large  tracts  of  the 
Universe.  They  are  ready  on  small  provocation  to 
embody  their  beliefs,  whether  scientific  or  theological, 
in  a  series  of  dogmatic  statements  which,  as  they 
will  tell  you,  accurately  express  their  own  accurate 
opinions,  and  between  which  and  any  differing  state- 
ments on  the  same  subject  is  fixed  that  great  gulf 
which  divides  for  ever  the  realms  of  Truth  from  those 
of  Error.  Now  I  would  venture  to  warn  the  reader 
against  paying  any  undue  meed  of  reverence  to  the 
axiom  on  which  this  view  essentially  depends,  the 
axiom,  I  mean,  that  'every  belief  must  be  either  true  or 
not  true.'  It  is,  of  course,  indisputable.  But  it  is  also 
unimportant ;  and  it  is  unimportant  for  this  reason, 
that  if  we  insist  on  assigning  every  belief  to  one  or 
other  of  these  two  mutually  exclusive  classes,  it  will 
be  found  that  most,  if  not  all,  the  positive  beliefs 
which  deal  with  concrete  reality — the  very  beliefs,  in 
short,  about  which  a  reasonable  man  may  be  expected 
principally  to  interest  himself — would  in  strictness 
have  to  be  classed  among  the  '  not  true.'     I  do  not 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,    AND    REALITIES         269 

say,  be  it  observed,  that  all  propositions  about  the 
concrete  world  must  needs  be  erroneous  ;  for,  as  we 
have  seen,  every  proposition  provides  the  fitting 
verbal  expression  for  many  different  beliefs,  and  of 
these  it  may  be  that  one  expresses  the  full  truth. 
My  contention  merely  is,  that  inasmuch  as  any  frag- 
mentary presentation  of  a  concrete  whole  must,  be- 
cause it  is  fragmentary,  be  therefore  erroneous,  the 
full  complexity  of  any  true  belief  about  reality  will 
necessarily  transcend  the  comprehension  of  any  finite 
intelligence.  We  know  only  in  part,  and  we  there- 
fore know  wrongly. 

But  it  may  perhaps  be  said  that  observations  like 
these  involve  a  confusion  between  the  '  not  true  ' 
and  the  '  incomplete.'  A  belief,  as  the  phrase  is, 
may  be  'true  so  far  as  it  goes,'  even  though  it  does 
not  go  far  enough.  It  may  contain  the  truth  and 
nothing  but  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  Why 
should  it  under  such  circumstances  receive  so  severe 
a  condemnation  ?  Why  is  it  to  be  branded,  not  only 
as  inadequate,  but  as  erroneous  ?  To  this  I  reply 
that  the  division  of  beliefs  into  the  True,  the  Incom 
plete,  and  the  Wholly  False  may  be,  and  for  many 
purposes  is,  a  very  convenient  one.  But  in  the  first 
place  it  is  not  philosophically  accurate,  since  that 
which  is  incomplete  is  touched  throughout  with  some 
element  of  falsity.  And  in  the  second  place  it  does ' 
not  happen  to  be  the  division  on  which  we  are 
engaged.  We  are  dealing  with  the  logical  contra- 
dictories '  True '  and  '  Not  True.'     And  what  makes 


270        BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,    AND    REALITIES 

it  worth  while  dealing  with  them  is,  that  the  parti- 
cular classification  of  beliefs  which  they  suggest  lies 
at  the  root  of  much  needless  controversy  in  all 
branches  of  knowledge,  and  not  least  in  theology  ; 
and  that  everywhere  it  has  produced  some  confusion 
of  thought  and,  it  may  be,  some  defect  of  charity. 
It  is  not  in  human  nature  that  those  who  start  from 
the  assumption  that  all  opinions  are  either  true  or 
not  true,  should  do  otherwise  than  take  for  granted 
that  their  own  particular  opinions  belong  to  the 
former  category  ;  and  that  therefore  all  inconsistent 
opinions  held  by  other  people  must  belong  to  the 
latter.  Now  this,  in  the  current  affairs  of  life,  and 
in  the  ordinary  commerce  between  man  and  man,  is 
not  merely  a  pardonable  but  a  necessary  way  of  look- 
ing at  things.  But  it  is  foolish  and  even  dangerous 
when  we  are  engaged  on  the  deeper  problems  of 
science,  metaphysics,  or  theology;  when  we  are  endea- 
vouring in  solitude  to  take  stock  of  our  position  in  the 
presence  of  the  Infinite.  However  profound  may  be 
our  ignorance  of  our  ignorance,  at  least  we  should 
realise  that  to  describe  (when  using  language  strictly) 
any  scheme  of  belief  as  wholly  false  which  has  even 
imperfectly  met  the  needs  of  mankind,  is  the  height 
of  arrogance  ;  and  that  to  claim  for  any  beliefs  which 
we  happen  to  approve  that  they  are  wholly  true,  is 
the  height  of  absurdity. 

Somewhat  more,  be  it  observed,  is  thus  required 
of  us  than  a  bare  confession  of  ignorance.  The 
least  modest  of  men  would  admit  without  difficulty 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES         271 

that  there  are  a  great  many  things  which  he  does 
not  understand  ;  but  the  most  modest  may  perhaps 
be  willing  to  suppose  that  there  are  some  things 
which  he  does.  Yet  outside  the  relations  of  abstract 
propositions  (about  which  I  say  nothing)  this  cannot 
be  admitted.  Nowhere  else — neither  in  our  know- 
ledge of  ourselves,  nor  in  our  knowledge  of  each 
other,  nor  in  our  knowledge  of  the  material  world, 
nor  in  our  knowledge  of  God,  is  there  any  belief 
which  is  more  than  an  approximation,  any  method 
which  is  free  from  flaw,  any  result  not  tainted  with 
error.  The  simplest  intuitions  and  the  remotest 
speculations  fall  under  the  same  condemnation. 
And  though  the  fact  is  apt  to  be  hidden  from  us 
by  the  unshrinking  definitions  with  which  alike  in 
science  and  theology  it  is  our  practice  to  register 
attained  results,  it  would,  as  we  have  seen,  be  a 
serious  mistake  to  suppose  that  any  complete  corre- 
spondence between  Belief  and  Reality  was  secured 
by  the  linguistic  precision  and  the  logical  impec- 
cability of  the  propositions  by  which  beliefs  them- 
selves are  communicated  and  recorded. 

To  some  persons  this  train  of  reflection  suggests 
nothing  but  sceptical  misgiving  and  intellectual 
despair.  To  me  it  seems,  on  the  other  hand,  to  save 
us  from  both.  What  kind  of  a  Universe  would  that 
be  which  we  could  understand  ?  If  it  were  in- 
telligible (by  us),  would  it  be  credible?  If  our 
reason  could  comprehend  it,  would  it  not  be  too 
narrow  for  our  needs  ?     '  I    believe   because    it    is 


272         BELIEFS,   FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

impossible  '  may  be  a  pious  paradox.  '  I  disbelieve 
because  it  is  simple'  commends  itself  to  me  as 
an  axiom.  An  axiom  doubtless  to  be  used  with 
discretion  :  an  axiom  which  may  easily  be  perverted 
in  the  interests  of  idleness  and  superstition  ;  an 
axiom,  nevertheless,  which  contains  a  valuable  truth 
not  always  remembered  by  those  who  make  especial 
profession  of  worldly  wisdom. 


IV 


However  this  may  be,  the  opinions  here 
advocated  may  help  us  to  solve  certain  difficulties 
occasionally  suggested  by  current  methods  of  deal- 
ing with  the  relation  between  Formulas  and  Beliefs. 
It  has  not  always,  for  instance,  been  found  easy  to 
reconcile  the  immutability  claimed  for  theological 
doctrines  with  the  movement  observed  in  theo- 
logical ideas.  Neither  of  them  can  readily  be 
abandoned.  The  conviction  that  there  are  Christian 
verities  which,  once  secured  for  the  human  race, 
cannot  by  any  lapse  of  time  be  rendered  obsolete  is 
one  which  no  Church  would  willingly  abandon.  Yet 
the  fact  that  theological  thought  follows  the  laws 
which  govern  the  evolution  of  all  other  thought,  that 
it  changes  from  age  to  age,  largely  as  regards  the 
relative  emphasis  given  to  its  various  elements,  not 
inconsiderably  as  regards  the  substance  of  those 
elements  themselves,  is  a  fact  written  legibly  across 
the  pages  of  ecclesiastical  history.  How  is  this 
apparent  contradiction  to  be  accommodated  ? 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES          273 

Consider  another  difficulty— one  quite  of  a 
different  kind.  The  common  sense  of  mankind  has 
been  shocked  at  the  value  occasionally  attributed  to 
uniformity  of  theological  profession,  when  it  is  per- 
haps obvious  from  many  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  that  this  carries  with  it  no  security  for  uni- 
formity of  inward  conviction.  There  is  an  unreality, 
or  at  least  an  externality  about  such  professions 
which,  to  those  who  think  (rightly  enough)  that 
religion,  if  it  is  to  be  of  any  value,  must  come  from 
the  heart,  is  apt  not  unnaturally  to  be  repulsive. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  but  a  shallow  form  of 
historical  criticism  which  shall  attribute  this  desire 
for  conformity  either  to  mere  impatience  of  expressed 
differences  of  opinion  (no  doubt  a  powerful  and 
widely  distributed  motive),  or  to  the  perversities  of 
Priestcraft.  What,  then,  is  the  view  which  we  ought 
to  take  of  it  ?  Is  it  good  or  bad  ?  and,  if  good, 
what  purpose  does  it  serve  ? 

Now  these  questions  may  be  answered,  I  think, 
at  least  in  part,  if  we  keep  in  mind  two  distinctions 
on  which  in  this  and  the  preceding  chapter  I  have 
ventured  to  insist — the  distinctions,  I  mean,  in  the 
first  place,  between  the  function  of  formulas  as  the 
systematic  expression  of  religious  doctrine,  and  their 
function  as  the  basis  of  religious  co-operation  ;  and 
the  distinction,  in  the  second  place,  between  the 
accuracy  of  any  formula  and  the  real  truth  of  the 
various  beliefs  which  it  is  capable  of  expressing. 

Uniformity  of  profession,  for  example,  to  take  the 

T 


274         BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

last  difficulty  first,  can  be  regarded  as  unimportant 
only  by  those  who  forget  that,  while  there  is  no 
necessary  connection  whatever  between  the  causes 
which  conduce  to  successful  co-operation  and  those 
which  conduce  to  the  attainment  of  speculative 
truth  of  these  two  objects  the  first  may,  under 
certain  circumstances,  be  much  more  important  than 
the  second.  A  Church  is  something  more  than  a 
body  of  more  or  less  qualified  persons  engaged  more 
or  less  successfully  in  the  study  of  theology.  It 
requires  a  very  different  equipment  from  that  which 
is  sufficient  for  a  learned  society.  Sornething  more 
is  asked  of  it  than  independent  research.  It  is  an 
organisation  charged  with  a  great  practical  work. 
For  the  successful  promotion  of  this  work  unity,  dis- 
cipline, and  self-devotion  are  the  principal  requisites  ; 
and,  as  in  the  case  of  every  other  such  organisation 
the  most  powerful  source  of  these  qualities  is  to  be 
found  in  the  feelings  aroused  by  common  memories, 
common  hopes,  common  loyalties  ;  by  professions 
in  which  all  agree  ;  by  a  ceremonial  which  all  share ; 
by  customs  and  commands  which  all  obey.  He, 
therefore,  who  would  wish  to  expel  such  influences 
either  from  Church  or  State,  on  the  ground  that  they 
may  alter  (as  alter  they  most  certainly  will)  the 
opinions  which,  in  their  absence,  the  members  of 
the  community,  left  to  follow  at  will  their  own  specu- 
lative devices,  would  otherwise  form,  may  know 
something  of  science  or  philosophy,  but  assuredly 
shows  very  little  of  human  nature. 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES         275 

But  it  will  perhaps  be  said  that  co-operation,  if  it 
is  only  to  be  had  on  these  terms,  may  easily  be 
bought  too  dear.  So,  indeed,  it  may.  The  history 
of  the  Church  is  unhappily  there  to  prove  the  fact. 
But  as  this  is  true  of  religious  organisations,  so  also  is 
it  true  of  every  other  organisation — national,  political, 
military,  what  you  will — by  which  the  work  of  the 
world  is  rendered  possible.  There  are  circumstances 
which  may  make  schism  justifiable,  as  there  are  cir- 
cumstances which  make  treason  justifiable,  or  mutiny 
justifiable.  But  without  going  into  the  ethics  of 
revolt,  without  endeavouring  to  determine  the  exact 
degree  of  error,  oppression,  or  crime  on  the  part  of 
those  who  stay  within  the  organisation  which  may 
render  innocent  or  necessary  the  secession  of  those 
who  leave.it,  it  is,  in  my  judgment,  perfectly  plain  that 
something  very  different  is,  or  ought  to  be,  involved 
in  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of  common  formulas 
than  an  announcement  to  the  world  of  a  purely 
speculative  agreement  respecting  the  niceties  of 
doctrinal  statement. 

This  view  may  perhaps  be  more  readily  accepted 
when  it  is  realised  that,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  no 
agreement  about  theological  or  any  other  doctrine 
insures,  or,  indeed,  is  capable  of  producing,  sameness 
of  belief.  We  are  no  more  able  to  believe  what 
other  people  believe  than  to  feel  what  other  people 
feel.  Two  friends  read  together  the  same  descrip- 
tion of  a  landscape.  Does  anyone  suppose  that  it 
stirs  within  them  precisely  the  same  quality  of  senti- 


276        BELIEFS,   FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

ment,  or  evokes  precisely  the  same  subtle  associa- 
tions ?  And  yet,  if  this  be  impossible,  as  it  surely  is, 
even  in  the  case  of  friends  attuned,  so  far  as  may 
be,  to  the  same  emotional  key,  how  hopeless  must 
it  be  in  the  case  of  an  artist  and  a  rustic,  an  Ancient 
and  a  Modern,  an  Andaman  islander  and  a  European ! 
But  if  no  representation  of  the  splendours  of  Nature 
can  produce  in  us  any  perfect  identity  of  admiration, 
why  expect  the  definitions  of  theology  or  science  to 
produce  in  us  any  perfect  identity  of  belief?  It  may 
not  be.  This  uniformity  of  conviction,  which  so  many 
have  striven  to  attain  for  themselves,  and  to  impose 
upon  their  fellows,  is  an  unsubstantial  phantasm,  born 
of  a  confusion  between  language  and  the  thought 
which  language  so  imperfectly  expresses.  In  this 
world,  at  least,  we  are  doomed  to  differ  even  in  the 
cases  where  we  most  agree. 

There  is,  however,  consolation  to  be  drawn  from 
the  converse  statement,  which  is,  I  hope,  not  less 
true.  If  there  are  differences  where  we  most  agree, 
surely  also  there  are  agreements  where  we  most 
differ.  I  like  to  think  of  the  human  race,  from 
whatever  stock  its  members  may  have  sprung,  in 
whatever  age  they  may  be  born,  whatever  creed 
they  may  profess,  together  in  the  presence  of  the 
One  Reality,  engaged,  not  wholly  in  vain,  in 
spelling  out  some  fragments  of  its  message.  All 
share  its  being  ;  to  none  are  its  oracles  wholly 
dumb.  And  if  both  in  the  natural  world  and  in  the 
spiritual    the  advancement   we  have  made  on  our 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES         277 

forefathers  be  so  great  that  our  interpretation  seems 
indefinitely  removed  from  that  which  primitive  man 
could  alone  comprehend,  and  wherewith  he  had  to 
be  content,  it  may  be,  indeed  I  think  it  is,  the  case 
that  our  approximate  guesses  are  still  closer  to  his 
than  they  are  to  their  common  Object,  and  that  far 
as  we  seem  to  have  travelled,  yet,  measured  on  the 
celestial  scale,  our  intellectual  progress  is  scarcely  to 
be  discerned,  so  minute  is  the  parallax  of  Infinite 
Truth. 

These  observations,  however,  seem  only  to 
render  more  distant  any  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
first  of  the  difficulties  propounded  above.  If  know- 
ledge must,  at  the  best,  be  so  imperfect ;  if  agree- 
ment, real  inner  agreement,  about  the  object  of 
knowledge  can  thus  never  be  complete  ;  and  if,  in 
addition  to  this,  the  history  of  religious  thought  is, 
like  all  other  history,  one  of  change  and  develop- 
ment, where  and  what  are  those  immutable  doctrines 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  most  theologians,  ought  to 
be  handed  on,  a  sacred  trust,  from  generation  to 
generation  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  is,  I  think, 
suggested  by  the  parallel  cases  of  science  and  ethics. 
For  all  these  things  may  be  said  of  them  as  well  as 
of  theology,  and  they  also  are  the  trustees  of  state- 
ments which  ought  to  be  preserved  unchanged 
through  all  revolutions  in  scientific  and  ethical  theory. 
Of  these  statements  I  do  not  pretend  to  give  either 
a  list  or  a  definition.  But  without  saying  what  they 
are,  it  is  at  least  permissible,  after  the  discussion  in 


278        BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES 

the  last  chapter,  to  say  what,  as  a  rule,  they  are  not. 
They  are  not  Explanatory.  Rare  indeed  is  it  to 
find  explanations  of  the  concrete  which,  if  they  en- 
dure at  all,  do  not  require  perpetual  patching  to  keep 
them  in  repair.  Not  among  these,  but  among  the 
statements  of  things  explained,  of  things  that  want  ex- 
planation, yes,  and  of  things  that  are  inexplicable,  we 
must  search  for  the  propositions  about  the  real  world 
capable  of  ministering  unchanged  for  indefinite 
periods  to  the  uses  of  Mankind.  Such  propositions 
may  record  a  particular  '  fact,'  as  that  'Csesar  is  dead.' 
They  may  embody  an  ethical  imperative,  as  that 
'  Stealing  is  wrong.'  They  may  convey  some  great 
principle,  as  that  the  order  of  Nature  is  uniform,  or 
that  '  God  exists.'  All  these  statements,  even  if 
accurate  (as  I  assume,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
they  are),  will,  no  doubt,  as  I  have  said,  have  a  dif- 
ferent import  for  different  persons  and  for  different 
ages.  But  this  is  not  only  consistent  with  their  value 
as  vehicles  for  the  transmission  of  truth — it  is  essential 
to  it.  If  their  meaning  could  be  exhausted  by  one 
generation,  they  would  be  false  for  the  next.  It  is 
because  they  can  be  charged  with  a  richer  and  richer 
content  as  our  knowledge  slowly  grows  to  a  fuller 
harmony  with  the  Infinite  Reality,  that  they  may  be 
counted  among  the  most  precious  of  our  inalienable 
possessions. 

NOTE 
The  permanent  value  which  the  results  of  the  great  ecclesias- 
tical controversies  of  the  first  four  centuries  have  had  for  Christ- 


BELIEFS,    FORMULAS,   AND   REALITIES         279 

endom,  as  compared  with  that  possessed  by  the  more  transitory 
speculations  of  later  ages,  illustrates,  I  think,  the  suggestion  con- 
tained in  the  text.  For  whatever  opinion  the  reader  may  enter- 
tain of  the  decisions  at  which  the  Church  arrived  on  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  it  is  at  least  clear  that  they  were  not  in  the  nature 
of  explanations.  They  were,  in  fact,  precisely  the  reverse.  They 
were  the  negation  of  explanations.  The  various  heresies  which  it 
combated  were,  broadly  speaking,  all  endeavours  to  bring  the 
mystery  as  far  as  possible  into  harmony  with  contemporary  specu- 
lations, Gnostic,  Neo-platonic,  or  Rationalising,  to  relieve  it  from 
this  or  that  difficulty  :  in  short,  to  do  something  towards  '  explain- 
ing' it.  The  Church  held  that  all  such  explanations  or  partial  ex- 
planations inflicted  irremediable  impoverishment  on  the  idea  of 
the  Godhead  which  was  essentially  involved  in  the  Christian  reve- 
lation. They  insisted  on  preserving  that  idea  in  all  its  inexplicable 
fulness  ;  and  so  it  has  come  about  that  while  such  simplifications 
as  those  of  the  Arians,  for  example,  are  so  alien  and  impossible  to 
modern  modes  of  thought  that  if  they  had  been  incorporated  with 
Christianity  they  must  have  destroyed  it,  the  doctrine  of  Christ's 
Divinity  still  gives  reality  and  life  to  the  worship  of  millions  of 
pious  souls,  who  are  wholly  ignorant  both  of  the  controversy  to 
which  they  owe  its  preservation,  and  of  the  technicalities  which 
its  discussion  has  involved. 


28o 


CHAPTER   IV 

4  ULTIMATE    SCIENTIFIC    IDEAS  ' 

If,  as  is  not  unlikely,  there  are  readers  who 
accept  unwillingly  this  profession  of  all-pervading 
error  in  so  far  as  it  applies  to  our  scientific  know- 
ledge— who  are  disposed  to  represent  Science  as  a 
Land  of  Goshen,  bright  beneath  the  unclouded 
splendours  of  the  midday  sun,  while  Religion  lies 
beyond,  wrapped  in  the  impenetrable  darkness  of  the 
Egyptian  plague — I  would  suggest  for  their  further 
consideration  certain  arguments,  not  drawn  like  those 
in  the  preceding  section  from  the  nature  of  our 
knowledge  in  general,  nor  like  those  in  an  earlier 
portion  of  this  Essay  from  the  deficiencies  which 
may  be  detected  in  scientific  proof,  but  based  exclu- 
sively upon  an  examination  of  fundamental  scientific 
ideas  considered  in  themselves.  For  these  ideas 
possess  a  quality,  exhibited  no  doubt  equally  by  ideas 
in  other  departments  of  knowledge,  which  admirably 
illustrates  our  ignorance  of  what  we  know  best,  our 
blindness  to  what  we  see  most  clearly.  This  quality, 
indeed,  is  not  very  easy  to  describe  in  a  sentence  ; 
but  perhaps  it  may  be  provisionally  indicated  by 
saying  that,  although  these  ideas  seem  quite  simple 


'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS'  281 

so  long  as  we  only  have  to  handle  them  for  the 
practical  purposes  of  daily  life,  yet,  when  they  are 
subjected  to  critical  investigation,  they  appear  to 
crumble  under  the  process  ;  to  lose  all  precision  of 
outline  ;  to  vanish  like  the  magician  in  the  story, 
leaving  only  an  elusive  mist  in  the  grasp  of  those 
who  would  arrest  them. 

Nothing,  for  instance,  seems  simpler  than  the  idea 
involved  in  the  statement  that  we  are,  each  of  us,  situ- 
ated at  any  given  moment  in  some  particular  portion 
of  space,  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  material 
things,  which  are  constantly  acting  upon  us  and  upon 
each  other.  A  proposition  of  this  kind  is  merely  a 
generalised  form  of  the  judgments  which  we  make 
every  minute  of  our  waking  lives,  about  whose 
meaning  we  entertain  no  manner  of  doubt,  which, 
indeed,  provide  us  with  our  familiar  examples  of  all 
that  is  most  lucid  and  most  certain.  Yet  the  purport 
of  the  sentence  which  expresses  it  is  clear  only  till  it 
is  examined,  is  certain  only  till  it  is  questioned  ;  while 
almost  every  word  in  it  suggests,  and  has  long  sug- 
gested, perplexing  problems  to  all  who  are  prepared 
to  consider  them. 

What  are  'we'?  What  is  space  ?  Can  '  we  ' 
be  in  space,  or  is  it  only  our  bodies  about  which  any 
such  statement  can  be  made  ?  What  is  a  '  thing '  ? 
and,  in  particular,  what  is  a  '  material  thing  '  ?  What 
is  meant  by  saying  that  one  '  material  thing '  acts 
upon  another  ?  What  is  meant  by  saying  that 
'material    things'    act   upon    'us'?     Here   are  six 


282  'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS' 

questions  all  directly  and  obviously  arising  out  of 
our  most  familiar  acts  of  judgment.  Yet,  direct  and 
obvious  as  they  are,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
they  involve  all  the  leading  problems  of  modern 
philosophy,  and  that  the  man  who  has  found  an 
answer  to  them  is  the  fortunate  possessor  of  a 
tolerably  complete  system  of  metaphysic. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  simplest  of  the  six 
questions  enumerated  above,  namely,  What  is  a 
'  material  thing '  ?  Nothing  could  be  plainer  till 
you  consider  it.  Nothing  can  be  obscurer  when 
you  do.  A  '  thing  '  has  qualities — hardness,  weight, 
shape,  and  so  forth.  Is  it  merely  the  sum  of  these 
qualities,  or  is  it  something  more  ?  If  it  is  merely 
the  sum  of  its  qualities,  have  these  any  independent 
existence  ?  Nay,  is  such  an  independent  existence 
even  conceivable?  If  it  is  something  more,  what 
is  the  relation  of  the  '  qualities '  to  the  '  something 
more '  ?  Again,  can  we  on  reflection  regard  a 
'  thing '  as  an  isolated  '  somewhat,'  an  entity  self- 
sufficient  and  potentially  solitary  ?  Or  must  we  not 
rather  regard  it  as  being  what  it  is  in  virtue  of  its 
relation  to  other  '  somewhats,'  which,  again,  are  what 
they  are  in  virtue  of  their  relation  to  it,  and  to  each 
other  ?  And  if  we  take,  as  I  think  we  must,  the 
latter  alternative,  are  we  not  driven  by  it  into  a 
profitless  progression  through  parts  which  are  unin- 
telligible by  themselves,  but  which  yet  obstinately 
refuse  to  coalesce  into  any  fully  intelligible  whole.  ? 

Now,  I  do  not  serve  up  these  cold  fragments  of 


'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS'  283 

ancient  though  unsolved  controversies  for  no  better 
purpose  than  to  weary  the  reader  who  is  familiar 
with  metaphysical  discussion,  and  to  puzzle  the 
reader  who  is  not.  I  rather  desire  to  direct  atten- 
tion to  the  universality  of  a  difficulty  which  many 
persons  seem  glad  enough  to  acknowledge  when 
they  come  across  it  in  Theology,  though  they  admit 
it  only  with  reluctance  in  the  case  of  Ethics  and 
^Esthetics,  and  for  the  most  part  completely  ignore 
it  when  they  are  dealing  with  our  knowledge  of 
'  phenomena.'  Yet  in  this  respect,  at  least,  all  these 
branches  of  knowledge  would  appear  to  stand  very 
much  upon  an  equality.  In  all  of  them  conclusions 
seem  more  certain  than  premises,  the  superstruc- 
ture more  stable  than  the  foundation.  In  all  of 
them  we  move  with  full  assurance  and  a  practical 
security  only  among  ideas  which  are  relative  and 
dependent.  In  all  of  them  these  ideas,  so  clear  and 
so  sufficient  for  purposes  of  everyday  thought  and 
action,  become  confused  and  but  dimly  intelligible 
when  examined  in  the  unsparing  light  of  critical 
analysis. 

We  need  not,  therefore,  be  surprised  if  we  find 
it  hard  to  isolate  the  permanent  element  in  Beauty, 
seeing  that  it  eludes  us  in  material  objects  ;  that 
the  ground  of  Moral  Law  should  not  be  wholly 
clear,  seeing  that  the  ground  of  Natural  Law  is  so 
obscure  ;  that  we  do  not  adequately  comprehend 
God,  seeing  that  we  can  give  no  very  satisfactory 
account  of  what  we  mean  by  'a  thing.'     Yet  I  think 


284  'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS' 

a  more  profitable  lesson  is  to  be  learnt  from  admis- 
sions like  these  than  the  general  inadequacy  of  our 
existing  metaphysic.  And  it  is  the  more  necessary 
to  consider  carefully  what  that  lesson  is,  inasmuch  as 
a  very  perverted  version  of  it  forms  the  basis  of  the 
only  modern  system  of  English  growth  which,  pro- 
fessing to  provide  us  with  a  general  philosophy, 
has  received  any  appreciable  amount  of  popular 
support. 

Mr.  Spencer's  theory  admits,  nay,  insists,  that 
what  it  calls  '  ultimate  scientific  ideas '  are  inconsistent 
and,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  '  unthinkable.'  Space, 
time,  matter,  motion,  force,  and  so  forth,  are  each  in 
turn  shown  to  involve  contradictions  which  it  is 
beyond  our  power  to  solve,  and  obscurities  which  it 
is  beyond  our  power  to  penetrate  ;  while  the  once 
famous  dialectic  of  Hamilton  and  Mansel  is  invoked 
for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the  same  lesson  with 
regard  to  the  Absolute  and  the  Unconditioned, 
which  those  thinkers  identified  with  God,  but  which 
Mr.  Spencer  prefers  to  describe  as  the  Unknowable. 

So  far,  so  good.  Though  the  details  '  of  the 
demonstration  may  not  be  altogether  to  our  liking,  I, 
at  least,  have  no  particular  quarrel  with  its  general 
tenor,  which  is  in  obvious  harmony  with  much  that 
I  have  just  been  insisting  on.  But  when  we  have 
to  consider  the  conclusion  which  Mr.  Spencer  con- 
trives to  extract  from  these  premises,  our  differences 
become  irreconcilable.  He  has  proved,  or  supposes 
himself  to  have  proved,  that  the  '  ultimate  ideas  '  of 


'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS'  285 

science  and  the  'ultimate  ideas'  of  theology  are 
alike  'unthinkable.'  What  is  the  proper  inference 
to  be  drawn  from  these  statements  ?  Why,  clearly, 
that  science  and  theology  are  so  far  on  an  equality 
that  every  proposition  which  considerations  like  these 
oblige  us  to  assert  about  the  one,  we  are  bound  to 
assert  also  about  the  other ;  and  that  our  general 
theory  of  knowledge  must  take  account  of  the  fact 
that  both  these  great  departments  of  it  are  infected 
by  the  same  weakness. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  inference  drawn  by  Mr. 
Spencer.  The  idea  that  the  conclusions  of  science 
should  be  profaned  by  speculative  questionings  is  to 
him  intolerable.  He  shrinks  from  an  admission 
which  seems  to  him  to  carry  universal  scepticism  in 
its  train.  And  he  has,  accordingly,  hit  upon  a  device 
for  '  reconciling  '  the  differences  between  science  and 
religion  by  which  so  lamentable  a  catastrophe  may 
be  avoided.  His  method  is  a  simple  one.  He 
divides  the  verities  which  have  to  be  believed  into 
those  which  relate  to  the  Knowable  and  those  which 
relate  to  the  Unknowable.  What  is  knowable  he 
appropriates,  without  exception,  for  science.  What 
is  unknowable  he  abandons,  without  reserve,  to  reli- 
gion. With  the  results  of  this  arbitration  both 
contending  parties  should,  in  his  opinion,  be  satisfied. 
It  is  true  that  religion  may  complain  that  by  this 
arrangement  it  is  made  the  residuary  legatee  of  all 
that  is  '  unthinkable '  ;  but  then,  it  should  remember 
that  it  obtains  in  exchange  an  indefeasible  title  to  all 


286  'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS' 

that  is  '  real.'  Science,  again,  may  complain  that  its 
activities  are  confined  to  the  '  relative  '  and  the  '  de- 
pendent '  ;  but  then,  it  should  remember  that  it  has 
a  monopoly  of  the  '  intelligible.'  The  one  possesses 
all  that  can  be  known  ;  the  other,  all  that  seems 
worth  knowing.  With  so  equal  a  partition  of  the 
spoils  both  disputants  should  be  content. 

Without  contesting  the  fairness  of  this  curious 
arrangement,  I  am  compelled  to  question  its  validity. 
Science  cannot  thus  transfer  the  burden  of  its  own 
obscurities  and  contradictions  to  the  shoulders  of 
religion  ;  and  Mr.  Spencer  is  only,  perhaps,  misled 
into  supposing  such  a  procedure  to  be  possible  by 
his  use  of  the  word  '  ultimate.'  '  Ultimate  '  scientific 
ideas  may,  in  his  opinion,  be  '  unthinkable '  without 
prejudice  to  the  ■  thinkableness  '  of  '  proximate ' 
scientific  ideas.  The  one  may  dwell  for  ever  in  the 
penumbra  of  what  he  calls  '  nascent  consciousness,' 
in  the  dim  twilight  where  religion  and  science  are  in- 
distinguishable ;  while  the  other  stands  out,  definite 
and  certain,  in  the  full  light  of  experience  and  verifi- 
cation. Such  a  view  is  not,  I  think,  philosophically 
tenable.  As  soon  as  the  '  unthinkableness '  of 
'  ultimate  '  scientific  ideas  is  speculatively  recognised, 
the  fact  must  react  upon  our  speculative  attitudes 
towards  '  proximate '  scientific  ideas.  That  which  in 
the  order  of  reason  is  dependent  cannot  be  unaffected 
by  the  weaknesses  and  the  obscurities  of  that  on 
which  it  depends.  If  the  one  is  unintelligible,  the 
other  can  hardly  be  rationally  established. 


•ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS'  287 

In  order  to  prove  this — if  proof  be  required — we 
need  not  travel  beyond  the  ample  limits  of  Mr. 
Spencer's  own  philosophy.  To  be  sure  he  obstinately 
shuts  his  ears  against  speculative  doubts  respecting 
the  conclusions  of  science.  '  To  ask  whether  science 
is  substantially  true  is  [he  observes]  much  like  asking 
whether  the  sun  gives  light.' *  It  is,  I  admit,  very 
much  like  it.  But  then,  on  Mr.  Spencer's  principles, 
does  the  sun  give  light?  After  due  consideration 
we  shall  have  to  admit,  I  think,  that  it  does  not. 
For  the  question,  if  asked  intelligently,  not  only 
involves  the  comprehension  of  matter,  space,  time, 
and  force,  which  are,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer,  all 
incomprehensible,  but  there  is  the  further  difficulty 
that,  if  his  system  is  to  be  believed,  '  what  we  are  con- 
scious of  as  properties  of  matter,  even  down  to  weight 
and  resistance,  are  but  subjective  affections  pro- 
duced by  objective  agencies,  which  are  unknown  and 
unknowable.'  2  It  would  seem,  therefore,  either  that 
the  sun  is  a  '  subjective  affection,'  in  which  case  it 
can  hardly  be  said  to  'give  light';  or  it  is  'unknown' 
and  'unknowable,'  in  which  case  no  assertion  re- 
specting it  can  be  regarded  as  supplying  us  with  any 
very  flattering  specimen  of  scientific  certitude. 

The  truth  is  that  Mr.  Spencer,  like  many  of  his 
predecessors,  has  impaired  the  value  of  his  specula- 
tions by  the  hesitating  timidity  with  which  he  has 
pursued  them.  Nobody  is  required  to  investigate 
first  principles  ;  but  those  who  voluntarily  undertake 

1  First  Principles,  p.  19.         2  Principles  of  Psychology,  ii.  493. 


288  'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS' 

the  task  should  not  shrink  from  its  results.  And  if 
among  these  we  have  to  count  a  theoretical  sceptic- 
ism about  scientific  knowledge,  we  make  matters, 
not  better,  but  worse,  by  attempting  to  ignore  it.  In 
Mr.  Spencer's  case  this  procedure  has,  among  other 
ill  consequences,  caused  him  to  miss  the  moral  which 
at  one  moment  lay  ready  to  his  hand.  He  has  had 
the  acuteness  to  see  that  our  beliefs  cannot  be  limited 
to  the  sequences  and  the  co-existences  of  phenomena  ; 
that  the  ideas  on  which  science  relies,  and  in  terms 
of  which  all  science  has  to  be  expressed,  break  down 
under  the  stress  of  criticism  ;  that  beyond  what  we 
think  we  know,  and  in  closest  relationship  with  it, 
lies  an  infinite  field  which  we  do  not  know,  and 
which  with  our  present  faculties  we  can  never  know, 
yet  which  cannot  be  ignored  without  making  what 
we  do  know  unintelligible  and  meaningless.  But  he 
has  failed  to  see  whither  such  speculations  must  in- 
evitably lead  him.  He  has  failed  to  see  that  if  the 
certitudes  of  science  lose  themselves  in  depths  of 
unfathomable  mystery,  it  may  well  be  that  out  of 
these  same  depths  there  should  emerge  the  certitudes 
of  religion  ;  and  that  if  the  dependence  of  the 
'  knowable  '  upon  the  '  unknowable  '  embarrasses  us 
not  in  the  one  case,  no  reason  can  be  assigned  why 
it  should  embarrass  us  in  the  other. 

Mr.  Spencer,  in  short,  has  avoided  the  error  of 
dividing  all  reality  into  a  Perceivable  which  concerns 
us,  and  an  Unperceivable  which,  if  it  exists  at 
all,    concerns   us   not.     Agnosticism    so  understood 


'ULTIMATE   SCIENTIFIC   IDEAS'  289 

he  explicitly  repudiates  by  his  theory,  if  not  by  his 
practice.  But  he  has  not  seen  that,  if  this  simple- 
minded  creed  be  once  abandoned,  there  is  no  con- 
venient halting-place  till  we  have  swung  round  to  a 
theory  of  things  which  is  almost  its  precise  opposite  : 
a  theory  which,  though  it  shrinks  on  its  speculative 
side  from  no  severity  of  critical  analysis,  yet  .  on 
its  practical  side  finds  the  source  of  its  constructive 
energy  in  the  deepest  needs  of  man,  and  thus  recog- 
nises, alike  in  science,  in  ethics,  in  beauty,  in  reli- 
gion, the  halting  expression  of  a  reality  beyond  our 
reach,  the  half-seen  vision  of  transcendent  Truth. 


290 


CHAPTER   V 

SCIENCE    AND    THEOLOGY 


The  point  of  view  we  have  thus  reached  is  obviously 
the  precise  opposite  of  that  which  is  adopted  by 
those  who  either  accept  the  naturalistic  view  of 
things  in  its  simplicity,  or  who  agree  with  natural- 
ism in  taking  our  knowledge  of  Nature  as  the  core 
and  substance  of  their  creed,  while  gladly  adding  to 
it  such  supernatural  supplements  as  are  permitted 
them  by  the  canons  of  their  rationalising  philosophy. 
Of  these  last  there  are  two  varieties.  There  are 
those  who  refuse  to  add  anything  to  the  teaching 
of  science  proper,  except  such  theological  doctrines 
as  they  persuade  themselves  may  be  deduced  from 
scientific  premises.  And  there  are  those  who,  being 
less  fastidious  in  the  matter  of  proof,  are  prepared, 
tentatively  and  provisionally,  to  admit  so  much  of 
theology  as  they  think  their  naturalistic  premises  do 
not  positively  contradict. 

It  must,  I  think,  be  admitted  that  the  members 
of  these  two  classes  are  at  some  disadvantage 
compared  with  the  naturalistic  philosophers  proper. 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  291 

To  be  sure,  the  scheme  of  belief  so  confidently  pro- 
pounded by  the  latter  is,  as  we  have  seen,  both 
incoherent  and  inadequate.  But  its  incoherence  is 
hid  from  them  by  the  inevitableness  of  its  positive 
teaching  ;  while  its  inadequacy  is  covered  by  the, 
as  yet,  unsquandered  heritage  of  sentiments  and 
ideals  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  other  ages 
inspired  by  other  faiths.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a 
set-off  against  this,  they  may  justly  claim  that  their 
principles,  such  as  they  are,  have  been  worked  out 
to  their  legitimate  conclusion.  They  have  reached 
their  journey's  end,  and  there  they  may  at  least  rest, 
if  it  is  not  given  them  to  be  thankful.  Far  different 
is  the  fate  of  those  who  are  reluctantly  travelling  the 
road  to  naturalism,  driven  thither  by  a  false  philo- 
sophy honestly  entertained.  To  them  each  new 
discovery  in  geology,  morphology,  anthropology,  or 
the  'higher  criticism,'  arouses  as  much  theological 
anxiety  as  it  does  scientific  interest.  They  are 
perpetually  occupied  in  the  task  of  '  reconciling,'  as 
the  phrase  goes,  '  religion  and  science.'  This  is  to 
them,  not  an  intellectual  luxury,  but  a  pressing  and 
overmastering  necessity.  For  their  theology  exists 
only  on  sufferance.  It  rules  over  its  hereditary 
territories  as  a  tributary  vassal  dependent  on  the 
forbearance  of  some  encroaching  overlord.  Province 
after  province  which  once  acknowledged  its  sove- 
reignty has  been  torn  from  its  grasp  ;  and  it  depends 
no  longer  upon  its  own  action,  but  upon  the  uncon- 
trolled policy  of  its  too  powerful  neighbour,  how  long 


292  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

it  shall  preserve   a   precarious   authority  over   the 
remainder. 

Now,    my   reasons  for  entirely  dissenting  from 
this  melancholy  view  of  the  relations  between  the 
various    departments    of  belief  have    been    one    of 
the  chief  themes  of  these   Notes.     But  it  must  not 
be  supposed  that  I  intend  either  to  deny  that  it  is 
our  business  to  '  reconcile '  all  beliefs,  so  far  as  pos- 
sible, into  a  self-consistent  whole,  or  to  assert  that,  be- 
cause a  perfectly  coherent  philosophy  cannot  as  yet  be 
attained,  it  is,  in  the  meanwhile,  a  matter  of  complete 
indifference  how  many  contradictions  and  obscurities 
we  admit  into  our  provisional  system.     Some  contra- 
dictions and  obscurities  there  needs  must  be.  ( I  That 
we  should  not  be  able  completely  to  harmonise  the 
detached  hints  and  isolated  fragments  in  which  alone 
Reality  comes  into  relation  with  us  ;  that  we  should 
but  imperfectly  co-ordinate  what  we  so  imperfectly 
comprehend,  is  what  we  might  expect,  and  what  for 
the  present  we  have  no  choice  but  to  submit  to. jj 
Yet  it  will,   I  think,  be  found  on  examination  that 
the    discrepancies   which    exist    between    different 
departments  of  belief  are  less  in  number  and  import- 
ance than  those  which  exist  within  the  various  de- 
partments themselves ;    that    the    difficulties  which 
science,  ethics,  or  theology  have  to  solve  in  common 
are  more  formidable  by  far  than  any  which  divide 
them  from  each  other  ;  and  that,  in  particular,  the 
supposed   '  conflict   between    science   and   religion,' 
which  occupies  so  large  a   space   in  contemporary 


SCIENCE   AND    THEOLOGY  293 

literature,  is  the  theme  of  so  much  vigorous  debate, 
and  seems  to  so  many  earnest  souls  the  one  question 
worth  resolving,  is  either  concerned  for  the  most  part 
with  matters  in  themselves  comparatively  trifling,  or 
touches  interests  lying  far  beyond  the  limits  of  pure 
theology.  . 

Of  course,  it  must  be  remembered  that  I  am  now 
talking  of  science,  not  of  naturalism.  The  differ- 
ences  between  naturalism  and  theology  are,  no  doubt, 
irreconcilable,  since  naturalism  is  by  definition  the 
negation  of  all  theology.  But  science  must  not  be 
dragged  into  every  one  of  the  many  quarrels  which 
naturalism  has  taken  upon  its  shoulders.  Science  is 
in  no  way  concerned,  for  instance,  to  deny  the  reality 
of  a  world  unrevealed  to  us  in  sense-perception,  nor 
the  existence  of  a  God  who,  however  imperfectly, 
may  be  known  by  those  who  diligently  seek  Him. 
All  it  says,  or  ought  to  say,  is  that  these  are  matters 
beyond  its  jurisdiction  ;  to  be  tried,  therefore,  in  other 
courts,  and  before  judges  administering  different  laws. 

But  we  may  go  further.  The  being  of  God  may 
be  beyond  the  province  of  science,  and  yet  it  may 
be  from  a  consideration  of  the  general  body  of 
scientific  knowledge  that  philosophy  draws  some 
important  motives  for  accepting  the  doctrine.  Any 
complete  survey  of  the  '  proofs  of  theism '  would,  I 
need  not  say,  be  here  quite  out  of  place ;  yet,  in 
order  to  make  clear  where  I  think  the  real  difficulty 
lies  in  framing  any  system  which  shall  include  both 
theology  and   science,   I   may  be   permitted  to  say 


294  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

enough  about  theism  to  show  where  I  think  the 
difficulty  does  not  lie.  It  does  not  lie  in  the  doctrine 
that  there  is  a  supernatural  or,  let  us  say,  a  meta- 
physical ground,  on  which  the  whole  system  of 
natural  phenomena  depend  ;  nor  in  the  attribution 
to  this  ground  of  the  quality  of  reason,  or,  it  may  be, 
of  something  higher  than  reason,  in  which  reason  is, 
so  to  speak,  included.  This  belief,  with  all  its 
inherent  obscurities,  is,  no  doubt,  necessary  to 
theology,  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  so  far,  in  my 
judgment,  from  being  repugnant  to  science  that, 
without  it,  the  scientific  view  of  the  natural  world 
would  not  be  less,  but  more,  beset  with  difficulties 
than  it  is  at  present. 

This  fact  has  been  in  part  obscured  by  certain 
infelicities  in  the  popular  statements  of  what  is  known 
as  the  '  Argument  from  Design.'  In  a  famous  answer 
to  that  argument  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  in- 
ference from  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  which 
rightly  convinces  us  in  the  case  of  manufactured 
articles  that  they  are  not  the  result  of  chance,  but 
are  produced  by  intelligent  contrivance,  can  scarcely 
be  legitimately  applied  to  the  case  of  the  universe  as 
a  whole.  An  induction  which  may  be  perfectly  valid 
within  the  circle  of  phenomena,  may  be  quite 
meaningless  when  it  is  employed  to  account  for  the 
circle  itself.  You  cannot  infer  a  God  from  the 
existence  of  the  world  as  you  infer  an  architect  from 
the  existence  of  a  house,  or  a  mechanic  from  the 
existence  of  a  watch. 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  295 

Without  discussing  the  merits  of  this  answer  at 
length,  so  much  may,  I  think,  be  conceded  to  it — that 
it  suggests  a  doubt  whether  the  theologians  who 
thus  rely  upon  an  inductive  proof  of  the  being  of  God 
are  not  in  a  position  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  the 
empirical  philosophers  who  rely  upon  an  inductive 
proof  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature.  The  uniformity 
of  Nature,  as  I  have  before  explained,  cannot  be 
proved  by  experience,  for  it  is  what  makes  proof 
from  experience  possible.1  We  must  bring  it,  or 
something  like  it,  to  the  facts  in  order  to  infer  any- 
thing from  them  at  all.  Assume  it,  and  we  shall  no 
doubt  find  that,  broadly  speaking  and  in  the  rough, 
what  we  call  the  facts  conform  to  it.  But  this  con- 
formity is  not  inductive  proof,  and  must  not  be 
confounded  with  it.  In  the  same  way,  I  do  not 
contend  that,  if  we  start  from  Nature  without  God, 
we  shall  be  logically  driven  to  believe  in  Him  by 
a  mere  consideration  of  the  examples  of  adaptation 
which  Nature  undoubtedly  contains.  It  is  enough 
that  when  we  bring  this  belief  with  us  to  the  study  of 
phenomena,  we  can  say  of  it,  what  we  have  just  said 
of  the  principle  of  uniformity,  namely,  that,  '  broadly 
speaking  and  in  the  rough,'  the  facts  harmonise  with 
it,  and  that  it  gives  a  unity  and  a  coherence  to  our 
apprehension  of  the  natural  world  which  it  would  not 
otherwise  possess. 

1  This  phrase  has  a  Kantian  ring  about  it  ;  but  I  need  not  say  that 
it  is  not  here  used  in  the  Kantian  sense.  The  argument  is  touched  on, 
as  the  reader  may  recollect,  at  the  end  of  Chapter  I.,  Part  II.  See, 
however,  below  a  further  discussion  as  to  what  the  uniformity  of 
Nature  means,  and  as  to  what  may  be  properly  inferred  from  it. 


296  SCIENCE  AND   THEOLOGY 


But  the  argument  from  design,  in  whatever  shape 
it  is  accepted,  is  not  the  only  one  in  favour  of  theism 
with  which  scientific  knowledge  furnishes  us.  Nor 
is  it,  to  my  mind,  the  most  important.  The  argument 
from  design  rests  upon  the  world  as  known.  But 
something  also  may  be  inferred  from  the  mere  fact 
that  we  know — a  fact  which,  like  every  other,  has  to 
be  accounted  for.  And  how  is  it  to  be  accounted 
for  ?  I  need  not  repeat  again  what  I  have  already 
said  about  Authority  and  Reason  ;  for  it  is  evident 
that,  whatever  be  the  part  played  by  reason  among 
the  proximate  causes  of  belief,  among  the  ultimate 
causes  it  plays,  according  to  science,  no  part  at  all. 
On  the  naturalistic  hypothesis,  the  whole  premises 
of  knowledge  are  clearly  due  to  the  blind  operation 
of  material  causes,  and  in  the  last  resort  to  these 
alone.  On  that  hypothesis  we  no  more  possess  free 
reason  than  we  possess  free  will.  As  all  our  voli- 
tions are  the  inevitable  product  of  forces  which  are 
quite  alien  to  morality,  so  all  our  conclusions  are 
the  inevitable  product  of  forces  which  are  quite  alien 
to  reason.  As  the  casual  introduction  of  conscience, 
or  a  '  good  will,'  into  the  chain  of  causes  which  ends 
in  a  virtuous  action  '  ought  not  to  suggest  any  idea 
of  merit,  so  the  casual  introduction  of  a  little  ratiocina- 
tion as  a  stray  link  in  the  chain  of  causes  which  ends 
in  what  we  are  pleased  to  describe  as  a  '  demonstrated 
conclusion,'  ought  not  to  be  taken  as  implying  that 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  297 

the  conclusion  is  in  harmony  with  fact.  Morality 
and  reason  are  august  names,  which  give  an  air  of 
respectability  to  certain  actions  and  certain  argu- 
ments ;  but  it  is  quite  obvious  on  examination  that, 
if  the  naturalistic  hypothesis  be  correct,  they  are  but 
unconscious  tools  in  the  hands  of  their  unmoral  and 
non-rational  antecedents,  and  that  the  real  responsi- 
bility for  all  they  do  lies  in  the  distribution  of  matter 
and  energy  which  happened  to  prevail  far  back  in 
the  incalculable  past. 

These  conclusions  are,  no  doubt,  as  we  saw  at 
the  beginning  of  this  Essay,  embarrassing  enough 
to  Morality.  But  they  are  absolutely  ruinous  to 
Knowledge.  For  they  require  us  to  accept  a 
system  as  rational,  one  of  whose  doctrines  is  that 
the  system  itself  is  the  product  of  causes  which 
have  no  tendency  to  truth  rather  than  falsehood, 
or  to  falsehood  rather  than  truth.  Forget,  if 
you  please,  that  reason  itself  is  the  result,  like  nerves 
or  muscles,  of  physical  antecedents.  Assume  (a 
tolerably  violent  assumption)  that  in  dealing  with 
her  premises  she  obeys  only  her  own  laws.  Of 
what  value  is  this  autonomy  if  those  premises  are 
settled  for  her  by  purely  irrational  forces,  which  she 
is  powerless  to  control,  or  even  to  comprehend  ? 
The  professor  of  naturalism  rejoicing  in  the  display 
of  his  dialectical  resources,  is  like  a  voyager,  pacing 
at  his  own  pleasure  up  and  down  the  ship's  deck, 
who  should  suppose  that  his  movements  had  some 
important  share  in  determining  his  position  on  the 

I   TJNTVF.Rcittv  ft 


29S  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

illimitable  ocean.  And  the  parallel  would  be  com- 
plete if  we  can  conceive  such  a  voyager  pointing  to 
the  alertness  of  his  step  and  the  vigour  of  his  limbs 
as  auguring  well  for  the  successful  prosecution  of  his 
journey,  while  assuring  you  in  the  very  same  breath 
that  the  vessel,  within  whose  narrow  bounds  he 
displays  all  this  meaningless  activity,  is  drifting  he 
knows  not  whence  nor  whither,  without  pilot  or 
captain,  at  the  bidding  of  shifting  winds  and  incal- 
culable currents. 

Consider  the  following  propositions,  selected  from 
the  naturalistic  creed  or  deduced  from  it  : — 

(i.)  My  beliefs,  in  so  far  as  they  are  the  result  of 
reasoning  at  all,  are  founded  on  premises  produced 
in  the  last  resort  by  the  '  collision  of  atoms.' 

(ii.)  Atoms,  having  no  prejudices  in  favour  of 
truth,  are  as  likely  to  turn  out  wrong  premises  as 
right  ones  ;  nay,  more  likely,  inasmuch  as  truth  is 
single  and  error  manifold. 

(iii.)  My  premises,  therefore,  in  the  first  place, 
and  my  conclusions  in  the  second,  are  certainly  un- 
trustworthy, and  probably  false.  Their  falsity,  more- 
over, is  of  a  kind  which  cannot  be  remedied  ;  since  any 
attempt  to  correct  it  must  start  from  premises  not 
suffering  under  the  same  defect.  But  no  such 
premises  exist. 

(iv.)  Therefore,  again,  my  opinion  about  the 
original  causes  which  produced  my  premises,  as  it  is 
an  inference  from  them,  partakes  of  their  weakness ; 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  299 

so    that    I    cannot    either    securely    doubt    my  own 
certainties  or  be  certain  about  my  own  doubts. 

This  is  scepticism  indeed  ;  scepticism  which  is 
forced  by  its  own  inner  nature  to  be  sceptical  even 
about  itself;  which  neither  kills  belief  nor  lets  it  live. 
But  it  may  perhaps  be  suggested  in  reply  to  this 
argument,  that  whatever  force  it  may  have  against 
the  old-fashioned  naturalism,  its  edge  is  blunted 
when  turned  against  the  evolutionary  agnosticism  of 
more  recent  growth  ;  since  the  latter  establishes  the 
existence  of  a  machinery  which,  irrational  though  it 
be,  does  really  tend  gradually,  and  in  the  long  run, 
to  produce  true  opinions  rather  than  false.  That 
machinery  is,  I  need  not  say,  Selection,  and  the 
other  forces  (if  other  forces  there  be)  which  bring 
the  '  organism '  into  more  and  more  perfect  harmony 
with  its  '  environment.'  Some  harmony  is  neces- 
sary— so  runs  the  argument — in  order  that  any 
form  of  life  may  be  possible  ;  and  as  life  develops, 
the  harmony  necessarily  becomes  more  and  more 
complete.  But  since  there  is  no  more  important 
form  in  which  this  harmony  can  show  itself  than  truth 
of  belief,  which  is,  indeed,  only  another  name  for  the 
perfect  correspondence  between  belief  and  fact, 
Nature,  herein  acting  as  a  kind  of  cosmic  Inquisi- 
tion, will  repress  by  judicious  persecution  any  lapses 
from  the  standard  of  naturalistic  orthodoxy.  Sound 
doctrine  will  be  fostered  ;  error  will  be  discouraged 
or  destroyed  ;  until  at  last,  by  methods  which   are 


Soo  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

neither  rational  themselves  nor  of  rational   origin, 
the  cause  of  reason  will  be  fully  vindicated. 

Arguments  like  these  are,  however,  quite  insuffi- 
cient to  justify  the  conclusion  which  is  drawn  from 
them.  In  the  first  place,  they  take  no  account  of 
any  causes  which  were  in  operation  before  life 
appeared  upon  the  planet.  Until  there  occurred  the 
unexplained  leap  from  the  Inorganic  to  the  Organic, 
Selection,  of  course,  had  no  place  among  the  evolu- 
tionary processes ;  while  even  after  that  date  it 
was,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  only  concerned  to 
foster  and  perpetuate  those  chance-born  beliefs  which 
minister  to  the  continuance  of  the  species.  But  what 
an  utterly  inadequate  basis  for  speculation  is  here ! 
We  are  to  suppose  that  powers  which  were  evolved 
in  primitive  man  and  his  animal  progenitors  in 
order  that  they  might  kill  with  success  and  marry 
in  security,  are  on  that  account  fitted  to  explore  the 
secrets  of  the  universe.  We  are  to  suppose  that  the 
fundamental  beliefs  on  which  these  powers  ol 
reasoning  are  to  be  exercised  reflect  with  sufficient 
precision  remote  aspects  of  reality,  though  they 
were  produced  in  the  main  by  physiological  pro- 
cesses which  date  from  a  stage  of  development 
when  the  only  curiosities  which  had  to  be  satisfied 
were  those  of  fear  and  those  of  hunger.  To  say- 
that  instruments  of  research  constructed  solely  for 
uses  like  these  cannot  be  expected  to  supply  us  with 
a  metaphysic  or  a  theology,  is  to  say  far  too  little. 
They  cannot  be  expected  to  give  us  any  general 


SCIENCE  AND   THEOLOGY  301 

view  even  of  the  phenomenal  world,  or  to  do  more 
than  guide  us  in  comparative  safety  from  the  satis- 
faction of  one  useful  appetite  to  the  satisfaction  of 
another.  On  this  theory,  therefore,  we  are  again 
driven  back  to  the  same  sceptical  position  in 
which  we  found  ourselves  left  by  the  older  forms 
of  the  '  positive,'  or  naturalistic  creed.  On  this 
theory,  as  on  the  other,  reason  has  to  recognise  that 
her  rights  of  independent  judgment  and  review  are 
merely  titular  dignities,  carrying  with  them  no  effec- 
tive powers  ;  and  that,  whatever  her  pretensions,  she 
is,  for  the  most  part,  the  mere  editor  and  interpreter 
of  the  utterances  of  unreason. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  escape  from  these  per- 
plexities is  possible,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  bring 
to  the  study  of  the  world  the  presupposition  that  it 
was  the  work  of  a  rational  Being,  who  made  it 
intelligible,  and  at  the  same  time  made  us,  in  how- 
ever feeble  a  fashion,  able  to  understand  it.  |This 
conception  does  not  solve  all  difficulties  ;  far  from 
it.1  But,  at  least,  it  is  not  on  the  face  of  it  incoherent. 
It  does  not  attempt  the  impossible  task  of  extract- 
ing reason  from  unreason  ;   nor  does  it  require  us 

1  According  to  a  once  prevalent  theory,  '  innate  ideas '  were  true 
because  they  were  implanted  in  us  by  God.  According  to  my  way  of 
putting  it,  there  must  be  a  God  to  justify  our  confidence  in  (what  used 
to  be  called)  innate  ideas.  I  have  given  the  argument  in  a  form  which 
avoids  all  discussion  as  to  the  nature  of  the  relation  between  mind 
and  body.  Whatever  be  the  mode  of  describing  this  which  ultimately 
commends  itself  to  naturalistic  psychologists,  the  reasoning  in  the 
text  holds  good.  Cf.  the  purely  sceptical  presentation  of  the  argument 
contained  in  Philosophic  Doubt,  chap.  xiii. 


302  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

to   accept  among  scientific   conclusions   any  which 
effectually  shatter   the    credibility  of  scientific  pre- 


ni 

Theism,  then,  whether  or  not  it  can  in  the  strict 
meaning  of  the  word  be  described  as  proved  by 
science,  is  a  principle  which  science,  for  a  double 
reason,  requires  for  its  own  completion.  The  ordered 
system  of  phenomena  asks  for  a  cause  ;  our  know- 
ledge of  that  system  is  inexplicable  unless  we  assume 
for  it  a  rational  Author.  Under  this  head,  at  least, 
there  should  be  no  '  conflict  between  science  and 
religion.' 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  if  theism  smoothes  away 
some  of  the  difficulties  which  atheism  raises,  it  is  not 
on  that  account  without  difficulties  of  its  own.  We 
cannot,  for  example,  form,  I  will  not  say  any  adequate, 
but  even  any  tolerable,  idea  of  the  mode  in  which 
God  is  related  to,  and  acts  on,  the  world  of  phenomena. 
That  He  created  it,  that  He  sustains  it,  we  are  driven 
to  believe.  How  He  created  it,  how  He  sustains  it, 
is  impossible  for  us  to  imagine.  But  let  it  be  observed 
that  the  difficulties  which  thus  arise  are  no  peculiar 
heritage  of  theology,  or  of  a  science  which  accepts 
among  its  presuppositions  the  central  truth  which 
theology  teaches.  Naturalism  itself  has  to  face  them 
in  a  yet  more  embarrassing  form.  For  they  meet 
us  not  only  in  connection  with  the  doctrine  of  God, 
but  in  connection  with   the  doctrine  of  man.     Not 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  303 

Divinity  alone  intervenes  in  the  world  of  things. 
Each  living  soul,  in  its  measure  and  degree,  does  the 
same.  Each  living  soul  which  acts  on  its  surround- 
ings raises  questions  analogous  to,  and  in  some  ways 
more  perplexing  than,  those  suggested  by  the  action 
of  a  God  immanent  in  a  universe  of  phenomena. 

Of  course  I  am  aware  that,  in  thus  speaking  of 
the  connection  between  man  and  his  material  sur- 
roundings, I  am  assuming  the  truth  of  a  theory  which 
some  men  of  science  (in  this,  however,  travelling  a 
little  beyond  their  province)  would  most  energetically 
deny.  But  their  denial  really  only  serves  to 
emphasise  the  extreme  difficulty  of  the  problem 
raised  by  the  relation  of  the  Self  to  phenomena.  So 
hardly  pressed  are  they  by  these  difficulties  that,  in 
order  to  evade  them,  they  attempt  an  impossible  act 
of  suicide  ;  and  because  the  Self  refuses  to  figure  as 
a  phenomenon  among  phenomena,  or  complacently 
to  fit  in  to  a  purely  scientific  view  of  the  world,  they 
set  about  the  hopeless  task  of  suppressing  it  alto- 
gether. Enough  has  already  been  said  on  this  point 
to  permit  me  to  pass  it  by.  I  will,  therefore,  only 
observe  that  those  who  ask  us  to  reject  the  con- 
viction entertained  by  each  one  of  us,  that  he  does 
actually  and  effectually  intervene  in  the  material 
world,  may  have  many  grounds  of  objection  to 
theology,  but  should  certainly  not  include  among 
them  the  reproach  that  it  asks  us  to  believe  the 
incredible. 

But,  in  truth,  without  going  into  the  metaphysics 


3o4  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

of  the  Self,  our  previous  discussions  1  contain  ample 
material  for  showing  how  impenetrable  are  the  mists 
which  obscure  the  relation  of  mind  to  matter,  of 
things  to  the  perception  of  things.  Neither  can  be 
eliminated  from  our  system.  Both  must  perforce 
form  elements  in  every  adequate  representation  of 
reality.  Yet  the  philosophic  artist  has  still  to  arise 
who  shall  combine  the  two  into  a  single  picture,  with- 
out doing  serious  violence  to  essential  features,  either 
of  the  one  or  the  other.  I  am  myself,  indeed,  dis- 
posed to  doubt  whether  any  concession  made  by  the 

1  Cf.  ante,  Part  II.,  Chaps.  I.  and  II.  It  may  be  worth  while  re- 
minding the  reader  of  one  set  of  difficulties  to  which  I  have  made 
little  reference  in  the  text.  Every  theory  of  the  relation  between  Will, 
or,  more  strictly,  the  Willing  Self  and  Matter  must  come  under  one  of 
two  heads  : — (i)  Either  Will  acts  on  Matter,  or  (2)  it  does  not.  If  it 
does  act  on  Matter,  it  must  be  either  as  Free  Will  or  as  Determined  Will. 
If  it  is  as  Free  Will,  it  upsets  the  uniformity  of  Nature,  and  our  most 
fundamental  scientific  conceptions  must  be  recast.  If  it  is  as  Deter- 
mined Will,  that  is  to  say,  if  volition  be  interpolated  as  a  necessary  link 
between  one  set  of  material  movements  and  another,  then,  indeed,  it 
leaves  the  uniformity  of  Nature  untouched  ;  but  it  violates  mechanical 
principles.  According  to  the  mechanical  view  of  the  world,  the  con- 
dition of  any  material  system  at  one  moment  is  absolutely  determined 
by  its  condition  at  the  preceding  moment.  In  a  world  so  conceived 
there  is  no  room  for  the  interpolation  even  of  Determined  Will  among 
the  causes  of  material  change.     It  is  mere  surplusage. 

(2.)  If  the  Will  does  not  act  on  Matter,  then  we  must  suppose  either 
that  volition  belongs  to  a  psychic  series  running  in  a  parallel  stream  to 
the  physiological  changes  of  the  brain,  though  neither  influenced  by  it 
nor  influencing  it — which  is,  of  course,  the  ancient  theory  of  pre-esta- 
blished harmony;  or  else  we  must  suppose  that  it  is  a  kind  of 
superfluous  consequence  of  certain  physiological  changes,  produced 
presumably  without  the  exhaustion  of  any  form  of  energy,  and  having 
no  effect  whatever,  either  upon  the  material  world  or,  I  suppose,  upon 
other  psychic  conditions.  This  reduces  us  to  automata,  and  automata 
of  a  kind  very  difficult  to  find  proper  accommodation  for  in  a  world 
scientifically  conceived. 

None  of  these  alternatives  seem  very  attractive,  but  one  of  them 
would  seem  to  be  inevitable. 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  305 

1  subjective '  to  the  'objective,'  or  by  the  'objective' 
to  the  'subjective,'  short  of  the  total  destruction  of 
one  or  the  other,  will  avail  to  produce  a  harmonious 
scheme.  And  certainly  no  discord  could  be  so 
barren,  so  unsatisfying,  so  practically  impossible,  as  a 
harmony  attained  at  such  a  cost.  We  must  acquiesce, 
then,  in  the  existence  of  an  unsolved  difficulty.  But 
it  is  a  difficulty  which  meets  us,  in  an  even  more  in- 
tractable form,  when  we  strive  to  realise  the  nature 
of  our  own  relations  to  the  little  world  in  which  we 
move,  than  when  we  are  dealing  with  a  like  problem 
in  respect  to  the  Divine  Spirit,  Who  is  the  Ground  of 
all  being  and  the  Source  of  all  change. 


IV 

But  though  there  should  thus  be  no  conflict 
between  theology  and  science,  either  as  to  the 
existence  of  God  or  as  to  the  possibility  of  His 
acting  on  phenomena,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the 
idea  of  God  which  is  suggested  by  science  is  com- 
patible with  the  idea  of  God  which  is  developed  by 
theology.  Identical,  of  course,  they  need  not  be. 
Theology  would  be  unnecessary  if  all  we  are  capable 
of  learning  about  God  could  be  inferred  from  a  study 
of  Nature.  Compatible,  however,  they  seemingly 
must  be,  if  science  and  religion  are  to  be  at  one. 

And  yet  I  know  not  whether  those  who  are  most 
persuaded  that  the  claims  of  these  two  powers  are 
irreconcilable  rest  their  case  willingly  upon  the  most 

x 


306  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

striking  incongruity  between  them  which  can  be 
produced — I  mean  the  existence  of  misery  and  the 
triumphs  of  wrong.  Yet  no  one  is,  or,  indeed,  could 
be,  blind  to  the  difficulty  which  thence  arises.  From 
the  world  as  presented  to  us  by  science  we  might 
conjecture  a  God  of  power  and  a  God  of  reason  ; 
but  we  never  could  infer  a  God  who  was  wholly 
loving  and  wholly  just.  So  that  what  religion  pro- 
claims aloud  to  be  His  most  essential  attributes  are 
precisely  those  respecting  which  the  oracles  of  science 
are  doubtful  or  are  dumb. 

One  reason,  I  suppose,  why  this  insistent  thought 
does  not,  so  far  as  my  observation  goes,  supply  a 
favourite  weapon  of  controversial  attack,  is  that 
ethics  is  obviously  as  much  interested  in  the  moral 
attributes  of  God  as  theology  can  ever  be  (a  point 
to  which  I  shall  presently  return).  But  another 
reason,  no  doubt,  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
difficulty  is  one  which  has  been  profoundly  realised  by 
religious  minds  ages  before  organised  science  can 
be  said  to  have  existed  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  growth  of  scientific  knowledge  has  neither  in- 
creased nor  diminished  the  burden  of  it  by  a  feather- 
weight. The  question,  therefore,  seems,  though  not, 
I  think,  quite  correctly,  to  be  one  which  is  wholly,  as 
it  were,  within  the  frontiers  of  theology,  and  which 
theologians  may,  therefore,  be  left  to  deal  with  as 
best  they  may,  undisturbed  by  any  arguments  sup- 
plied by  science.  If  this  be  not  in  theory  strictly 
true,   it  is  in  practice  but  little  wide  of  the   mark. 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  307 

The  facts  which  raise  the  problem  in  its  acutest  form 
belong,  indeed,  to  that  portion  of  the  experience  of 
life  which  is  the  common  property  of  science  and 
theology  ;  but  theology  is  much  more  deeply  con- 
cerned in  them  than  science  can  ever  be,  and  has 
long  faced  the  unsolved  problem  which  they  present. 
The  weight  which  it  has  thus  borne  for  all  these 
centuries  is  not  likely  now  to  crush  it  ;  and,  para- 
doxical though  it  seems,  it  is  yet  surely  true,  that 
what  is  a  theological  stumbling-block  may  also  be  a 
religious  aid  ;  and  that  it  is  in  part  the  thought  of 
'  all  creation  groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  together, 
waiting  for  redemption,'  which  creates  in  man  the 
deepest  need  for  faith  in  the  love  of  God. 


I  conceive,  then,  that  those  who  talk  of  the  '  con- 
flict between  science  and  religion'  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
refer  to  the  difficulty  presented  by  the  existence 
of  Evil.  Where,  then,  in  their  opinion,  is  the 
point  of  irreconcilable  difference  to  be  found  ?  It 
will,  I  suppose,  at  once  be  replied,  in  Miracles.  But 
though  the  answer  has  in  it  a  measure  of  truth, 
though,  without  doubt,  it  is  possible  to  approach  the 
real  kernel  of  the  problem  from  the  side  of  miracles, 
I  confess  this  seems  to  me  to  be  in  fact  but  seldom 
accomplished ;  while  the  very  term  is  more  sug- 
gestive of  controversy,  wearisome,  unprofitable,  and 
unending,  than  any  other  in  the  language,  Free 
Will  alone  being  excepted.     Into  this  Serbonian  bog 


3o8  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

I  scarcely  dare  ask  the  reader  to  follow  me,  though 
the  adventure  must,  I  am  afraid,  be  undertaken  if  the 
purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  be  accomplished. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  seems  to  me  unfortunate 
that  the  principle  of  the  Uniformity  of  Nature  should 
so  often  be  dragged  into  a  controversy  with  which  its 
connection  is  so  dubious  and  obscure.  For  what  do 
we  mean  by  saying  that  Nature  is  uniform  ?  We 
may  mean,  perhaps  we  ought  to  mean,  that  (leaving 
Free  Will  out  of  account)  the  condition  of  the  world 
at  one  moment  is  so  connected  with  its  condition 
at  the  next,  that  if  we  could  imagine  it  brought 
twice  into  exactly  the  same  position,  its  subsequent 
history  would  in  each  case  be  exactly  the  same. 
Now  no  one,  I  suppose,  imagines  that  uniformity  in 
this  sense  has  any  quarrel  with  miracles.  If  a 
miracle  is  a  wonder  wrought  by  God  to  meet  the 
needs  arising  out  of  the  special  circumstances  of 
a  particular  moment,  then,  supposing  the  circum- 
stances were  to  recur,  as  they  would  if  the  world 
were  twice  to  pass  through  the  same  phase,  the 
?niracle,  we  cannot  doubt,  would  recur  also.  It  is 
not  possible  to  suppose  that  the  uniformity  of  Nature 
thus  broadly  interpreted  would  be  marred  by  Him 
on  Whom  Nature  depends,  and  Who  is  immanent 
in  all  its  changes. 

But  it  will  be  replied  that  the  uniformity  with 
which  miracles  are  thus  said  to  be  consistent  carries 
with  it  no  important  consequences  whatever.  Its 
truth  or  untruth  is  a  matter  of  equal  indifference  to 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  309 

the  practical  man,  the  man  of  science,  and  the 
philosopher.  It  asserts  in  reality  (it  may  be  said)  no 
more  than  this,  that  if  history  once  began  repeating 
itself,  it  would  go  on  doing  so,  like  a  recurring 
decimal.  But  as  history  in  fact  never  does  exactly 
repeat  itself,  as  the  universe  never  is  twice  over  pre- 
cisely in  the  same  condition,  we  should  no  more  be 
able  to  judge  the  future  from  the  past,  cr  to  detect 
the  operation  of  particular  laws  of  Nature  in  a 
world  where  only  this  kind  of  theoretic  uniformity 
prevailed,  than  we  should  under  the  misrule  of  chaos 
and  blind  chance. 

There  is  force  in  these  observations,  which  are, 
however,  much  more  embarrassing  to  the  philosophy 
of  science  than  to  that  of  theology.  Without  doubt 
all  experimental  inference,  as  well  as  the  ordinary 
conduct  of  life,  depends  on  supplementing  this 
general  view  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature  with 
certain  working  hypotheses  which  are  not  always, 
though  they  ought  to  be,  most  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  it.  One  of  these  is,  that  Nature 
is  not  merely  uniform  as  a  whole,  but  is  made  up  of  a 
bundle  of  smaller  uniformities  ;  or,  in  other  words, 
that  there  is  a  determinate  relation,  not  only  between 
the  successive  phases  of  the  whole  universe,  but 
between  successive  phases  of  certain  fragments  of  it ; 
which  successive  phases  we  commonly  describe  as 
'causes' and  'effects.'  Another  of  these  working 
hypotheses  is,  that  though  the  universe  as  a  whole 
never  repeats  itself,  these  isolated  fragments  of  it 


3io  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

do.  And  a  third  is,  that  we  have  means  at  our  dis- 
posal whereby  these  fragments  can  be  accurately 
divided  off  from  the  rest  of  Nature,  and  confidently 
recognised  when  they  recur.  Now  I  doubt  whether 
any  one  of  these  three  presuppositions — which,  be  it 
noted,  lie  at  the  very  root  of  the  collection  of  empirical 
maxims  which  we  dignify  with  the  name  of  inductive 
logic — can,  from  the  point  of  view  of  philosophy,  be 
regarded  as  more  than  an  approximation.  It  is  hard 
to  believe  that  the  concrete  Whole  of  things  can  be 
thus  cut  up  into  independent  portions.  It  is  still 
harder  to  believe  that  any  such  portion  is  ever 
repeated  absolutely  unaltered  ;  since  its  character 
must  surely  in  part  depend  upon  its  relation  to  all 
the  other  portions,  which  (by  hypothesis)  are  not 
repeated  with  it.  And  it  is  quite  impossible  to 
believe  that  inductive  logic  has  succeeded  by  any 
of  its  methods  in  providing  a  sure  criterion  for  deter- 
mining, when  any  such  portion  is  apparently  re- 
peated, whether  all  the  elements,  and  not  more  than 
all,  are  again  present  which  on  previous  occasions  did 
really  constitute  it  a  case  of  '  cause '  and  '  effect.'1 

If  this  seems  paradoxical,  it  is  chiefly  because  we 
habitually  use  phraseology  which,  strictly  interpreted, 
seems  to  imply  that  a  '  law  of  Nature,'  as  it  is 
called,  is  a  sort  of  self-subsisting  entity,  to  whose 
charge  is  confided  some  department  in  the  world  of 
phenomena,  over  which  it  rules  with  undisputed  sway. 

1  See  some  of  these  points  more  fully  worked  out  in  Philosophic 
Doubt,  Part  I.,  Chap.  II. 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  311 

Of  course  this  is  not  so.  In  the  world  of  pheno- 
mena, Reality  is  exhausted  by  what  is  and  what 
happens.  Beyond  this  there  is  nothing.  These 
'  laws  '  are  merely  abstractions  devised  by  us  for 
our  own  guidance  through  the  complexities  of  fact. 
They  possess  neither  independent  powers  nor 
actual  existence.  And  if  we  would  use  language 
with  perfect  accuracy,  we  ought,  it  would  seem, 
either  to  say  that  the  same  cause  would  always  be 
followed  by  precisely  the  same  effect,  if  it  recurred — 
which  it  never  does  ;  or  that,  in  certain  regions  of 
Nature,  though  only  in  certain  regions,  we  can  de- 
tect subordinate  uniformities  of  repetition  which, 
though  not  exact,  enable  us  without  sensible  in- 
security or  error  to  anticipate  the  future  or  recon- 
struct the  past. 

This  hurried  glance  which  I  have  asked  the 
reader  to  take  into  some  obscure  corners  of  inductive 
theory  is  by  no  means  intended  to  suggest  that  it  is 
as  easy  to  believe  in  a  miracle  as  not ;  or  even  that 
on  other  grounds,  presently  to  be  referred  to,  miracles 
ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  incredible.  But  it  does 
show,  in  my  judgment,  that  no  profit  can  yet  be  ex- 
tracted from  controversies  as  to  the  precise  relation 
in  which  they  stand  to  the  Order  of  the  world. 
Those  engaged  in  these  controversies  have  not  un- 
commonly committed  a  double  error.  They  have, 
in  the  first  place,  chosen  to  assume  that  we  have  a 
perfectly  clear  and  generally  accepted  theory  as  to 
what   is  meant  by  the  Uniformity  of  Nature,  as  to 


3i2  SCIENCE  AND   THEOLOGY 

what  is  meant  by  particular  Laws  of  Nature,  as  to 
the  relation  in  which  the  particular  Laws  stand  to 
the  general  Uniformity,  and  as  to  the  kind  of  proof 
by  which  each  is  to  be  established.  And,  having 
committed  this  philosophic  error,  they  proceed  to 
add  to  it  the  historical  error  of  crediting  primitive 
theology  with  a  knowledge  of  this  theory,  and  with 
a  desire  to  improve  upon  it.  They  seem  to  suppose 
that  apostles  and  prophets  were  in  the  habit  of 
looking  at  the  natural  world  in  its  ordinary  course, 
with  the  eyes  of  an  eighteenth-century  deist,  as  if 
it  were  a  bundle  of  uniformities  which,  once  set 
going,  went  on  for  ever  automatically  repeating 
themselves ;  and  that  their  message  to  mankind 
consisted  in  announcing  the  existence  of  another, 
or  supernatural  world,  which  occasionally  upset  one 
or  two  of  these  natural  uniformities  by  means  of  a 
miracle.  No  such  theory  can  be  extracted  from 
their  writings,  and  no  such  theory  should  be  read 
into  them  ;  and  this  not  merely  because  such  an 
attribution  is  unhistorical,  nor  yet  because  there  is 
any  ground  for  doubting  the  interaction  of  the 
'  spiritual '  and  the  '  natural '  ;  but  because  this  ac- 
count of  the  '  natural '  itself  is  one  which,  if  inter- 
preted strictly,  seems  open  to  grave  philosophical 
objection,  and  is  certainly  deficient  in  philosophic 
proof. 

The  real  difficulties  connected  with  theological 
miracles  lie  elsewhere.  Two  qualities  seem  to  be  of 
their  essence  :  they  must  be  wonders,  and  they  must 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  313 

be  wonders  due  to  the  special  action  of  Divine  power ; 
and  each  of  these  qualities  raises  a  special  problem  of 
its  own.  That  raised  by  the  first  is  the  question  of 
evidence.  What  amount  of  evidence,  if  any,  is  suffi- 
cient to  render  a  miracle  credible  ?  And  on  this, 
which  is  apart  from  the  main  track  of  my  argument, 
I  may  perhaps  content  myself  with  pointing  out,  that 
if  by  evidence  is  meant,  as  it  usually  is,  historical 
testimony,  this  is  not  a  fixed  quantity,  the  same  for 
every  reasonable  man,  no  matter  what  may  be  his 
other  opinions.  It  varies,  and  must  necessarily  vary, 
with  the  general  views,  the  '  psychological  climate,' 
which  he  brings  to  its  consideration.  It  is  possible 
to  get  twelve  plain  men  to  agree  on  the  evidence 
which  requires  them  to  bring  in  a  verdict  of  guilty  or 
not  guilty,  because  they  start  with  a  common  stock 
of  presuppositions,  in  the  light  of  which  the  evidence 
submitted  to  them  may,  without  preliminary  discus- 
sion, be  interpreted.  But  when,  as  in  the  case  of 
theological  miracles,  there  is  no  such  common  stock, 
any  agreement  on  a  verdict  can  scarcely  be  looked 
for.  One  of  the  jury  may  hold  the  naturalistic  view 
of  the  world.  To  him,  of  course,  the  occurrence  of 
a  miracle  involves  the  abandonment  of  the  whole 
philosophy  in  terms  of  which  he  is  accustomed  to 
interpret  the  universe.  Argument,  custom,  pre- 
judice, authority — every  conviction-making  machine, 
rational  and  non-rational,  by  which  his  scheme  of 
belief  has  been  fashioned — conspire  to  make  this 
vast  intellectual  revolution  difficult.     And  we  need 


3i4  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

not  be  surprised  that  even  the  most  excellent 
evidence  for  a  few  isolated  incidents  is  quite  insuffi- 
cient to  effect  his  conversion  ;  nor  that  he  occa- 
sionally shows  a  disposition  to  go  very  extraordinary 
lengths  in  contriving  historical  or  critical  theories  for 
the  purpose  of  explaining  such  evidence  away. 

Another  may  believe  in  '  verbal  inspiration.'  To 
him,  the  discussion  of  evidence  in  the  ordinary  sense 
is  quite  superfluous.  Every  miracle,  whatever  its 
character,  whatever  the  circumstances  in  which  it 
occurred,  whatever  its  relation,  whether  essential  or 
accidental,  to  the  general  scheme  of  religion,  is  to 
be  accepted  with  equal  confidence,  provided  it  be 
narrated  in  the  works  of  inspired  authors.  It  is 
written  :  it  is  therefore  true.  And  in  the  light  of  this 
presupposition  alone  must  the  results  of  any  merely 
critical  or  historical  discussion  be  finally  judged. 

A  third  of  our  supposed  jurymen  may  reject  both 
naturalism  and  verbal  inspiration.  He  may  appraise 
the  evidence  alleged  in  favour  of  '  Wonders  due  to 
the  special  action  of  Divine  power '  by  the  light  of  an 
altogether  different  theory  of  the  world  and  of  God's 
action  therein.  He  may  consider  religion  to  be  as 
necessary  an  element  in  any  adequate  scheme  of 
belief  as  science  itself.  Every  event,  therefore, 
whether  wonderful  or  not,  a  belief  in  whose  occur- 
rence is  involved  in  that  religion,  every  event  by 
whose  disproof  the  religion  would  be  seriously  im- 
poverished or  altogether  destroyed,  has  behind  it 
the  whole  combined  strength  of  the  system  to  which 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  315 

it  belongs.  It  is  not,  indeed,  believed  independently 
of  external  evidence,  any  more  than  the  most 
ordinary  occurrences  in  history  are  believed  indepen- 
dently of  external  evidence.  But  it  does  not  require, 
as  some  people  appear  to  suppose,  the  impossible 
accumulation  of  proof  on  proof,  of  testimony  on 
testimony,  before  the  presumption  against  it  can  be 
neutralised.  For,  in  truth,  no  such  presumption  may 
exist  at  all.  Strange  as  the  miracle  must  seem,  and 
inharmonious  when  considered  as  an  alien  element 
in  an  otherwise  naturalistic  setting,  it  may  assume  a 
character  of  inevitableness,  it  may  almost  proclaim 
aloud  that  thus  it  has  occurred,  and  not  otherwise, 
to  those  who  consider  it  in  its  relation,  not  to  the 
natural  world  alone,  but  to  the  spiritual,  and  to  the 
needs  of  man  as  a  citizen  of  both. 


VI 

Many  other  varieties  of  '  psychological  climate  ' 
might  be  described  ;  but  what  I  have  said  is,  perhaps, 
enough  to  show  how  absurd  it  is  to  expect  any 
unanimity  as  to  the  value  of  historical  evidence  until 
some  better  agreement  has  been  arrived  at  respecting 
the  presuppositions  in  the  light  of  which  alone  such 
evidence  can  be  estimated.  I  pass,  therefore,  to 
the  difficulty  raised  by  the  second,  and  much  more 
fundamental,  attribute  of  theological  miracles  to 
which  I  have  adverted,  namely,  that  they  are  due 
to   the   '  special  action    of  God.'     But    this,  be    it 


3i6  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

observed,  is,  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  no 
peculiarity  of  miracles.  Few  schemes  of  thought 
which  have  any  religious  flavour  about  them  at  all 
wholly  exclude  the  idea  of  what  I  will  venture  to 
call  the  '  preferential  exercise  of  Divine  power,' 
whatever  differences  of  opinion  may  exist  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  manifested.  There  are  those 
who  reject  miracles  but  who,  at  least  in  those  fateful 
moments  when  they  imaginatively  realise  their  own 
helplessness,  will  admit  what  in  a  certain  literature 
is  called  a  '  special  Providence.'  There  are  those 
who  reject  the  notion  of  '  special  Providence,'  but 
who  admit  a  sort  of  Divine  superintendence  over  the 
general  course  of  history.  There  are  those,  again, 
who  reject  in  its  ordinary  shape  the  idea  of  Divine 
superintendence,  but  who  conceive  that  they  can 
escape  from  philosophic  reproach  by  beating  out  the 
idea  yet  a  little  thinner,  and  admitting  that  there 
does  exist  somewhere  a  '  Power  which  makes  for 
righteousness.' 

For  my  own  part,  I  think  all  these  various 
opinions  are  equally  open  to0the  only  form  of  attack 
which  it  is  worth  while  to  bring  against  any  one  of 
them.  And  if  we  allow,  as  (supposing  religion  in  any 
shape  to  be  true)  we  must  allow,  that  the  '  prefer- 
ential action '  of  Divine  power  is  possible,  nothing 
is  gained  by  qualifying  the  admission  with  all  those 
fanciful  limitations  and  distinctions  with  which  dif- 
ferent schools  of  thought  have  seen  fit  to  en- 
cumber it.     The  admission  itself,  however,  is  one 


SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY  317 

which,  in  whatever  shape  it  may  be  made,  no  doubt 
suggests  questions  of  great  difficulty.  How  can  the 
Divine  Being  Who  is  the  Ground  and  Source  of 
everything  that  is,  Who  sustains  all,  directs  all,  pro- 
duces all,  be  connected  more  closely  with  one  part 
of  that  which  He  has  created  than  with  another  ? 
If  every  event  be  wholly  due  to  Him,  how  can  we 
say  that  any  single  event,  such  as  a  miracle,  or  any 
tendency  of  events,  such  as  '  making  for  righteous- 
ness,' is  specially  His  ?  What  room  for  difference  or 
distinction  is  there  within  the  circuit  of  His  universal 
power?  Since  the  relation  between  His  creation 
and  Him  is  throughout  and  in  every  particular  one  of 
absolute  dependence,  what  meaning  can  we  attach 
to  the  metaphor  which  represents  Him  as  taking 
part  with  one  fragment  of  it,  or  as  hostile  to  another  ? 
Now  it  has,  in  the  first  place,  to  be  observed  that 
ethics  is  almost  as  much  concerned  in  dealing  with 
this  difficulty  as  theology  itself.  For  if  we  cannot 
believe  in  '  preferential  action,'  neither  can  we 
believe  in  the  moral  qualities  of  which  '  preferential 
action '  is  the  sign  ;  and  with  the  moral  qualities  of 
God  is  bound  up  the  fate  of  anything  which  deserves 
to  be  called  morality  at  all.  I  am  not  now  arguing 
that  ethics  cannot  exist  unsupported  by  theism.  On 
this  theme  I  have  already  said  something,  and  shall 
have  to  say  more.  My  present  contention  is,  that 
though  history  may  show  plenty  of  examples  in 
heathendom  of  ethical  theory  being  far  in  advance 
of  the  recognised   religion,  it  is   yet  impossible   to 


3i8  SCIENCE   AND   THEOLOGY 

suppose  that  morality  would  not  ultimately  be 
destroyed  by  the  clearly  realised  belief  in  a  God 
Who  was  either  indifferent  to  good  or  inclined  to 
evil. 

For  a  universe  in  which  all  the  power  was  on  the 
side  of  the  Creator,  and  all  the  morality  on  the  side 
of  creation,  would  be  one  compared  with  which  the 
universe  of  naturalism  would  shine  out  a  paradise 
indeed.  Even  the  poet  has  not  dared  to  represent 
Jupiter  torturing  Prometheus  without  the  dim  figure 
of  Avenging  Fate  waiting  silently  in  the  background. 
But  if  the  idea  of  an  immoral  Creator  governing  a 
world  peopled  with  moral,  or  even  with  sentient, 
creatures,  is  a  speculative  nightmare,  the  case  is  not 
materially  mended  by  substituting  for  an  immoral 
Creator  an  indifferent  one.  Once  assume  a  God, 
and  we  shall  be  obliged,  sooner  or  later,  to  introduce 
harmony  into  our  system  by  making  obedience  to 
His  will  coincident  with  the  established  rules  of  con- 
duct. We  cannot  frame  our  advice  to  mankind  on 
the  hypothesis  that  to  defy  Omnipotence  is  the 
beginning  of  wisdom.  But  if  this  process  of 
adjustment  is  to  be  done  consistently  with  the  main- 
tenance of  any  eternal  and  absolute  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong,  then  must  His  will  be  a 
'good  will,'  and  we  must  suppose  Him  to  look  with 
favour  upon  some  parts  of  this  mixed  world  of  good 
and  evil,  and  with  disfavour  upon  others.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  this  distinction  seems  to  us  metaphysi- 
cally   impossible ;    if  we  cannot  do  otherwise  than 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  319 

regard  Him  as  related  in  precisely  the  same  way  to 
every  portion  of  His  creation,  looking  with  in- 
different eyes  upon  misery  and  happiness,  truth 
and  error,  vice  and  virtue,  then  our  theology  must 
surely  drive  us,  under  whatever  disguise,  to  empty 
ethics  of  all  ethical  significance,  and  to  reduce  virtue 
to  a  colourless  acquiescence  in  the  Appointed  Order. 

Systems  there  are  which  do  not  shrink  from 
these  speculative  conclusions.  But  their  authors 
will,  I  think,  be  found  rather  among  those  who 
approach  the  problem  of  the  world  from  the  side  of 
a  particular  metaphysic,  than  those  who  approach  it 
from  the  side  of  science.  He  who  sees  in  God  no 
more  than  the  Infinite  Substance  of  which  the  world 
of  phenomena  constitutes  the  accidents,  or  who 
requires  Him  for  no  other  purpose  than  as  Infinite 
Subject,  to  supply  the  '  unity  '  without  which  the 
world  of  phenomena  would  be  an  '  unmeaning  flux  of 
unconnected  particulars,'  may  naturally  suppose  Him 
to  be  equally  related  to  everything,  good  or  bad,  that 
has  been,  is,  or  can  be.  But  I  do  not  think  that  the 
man  of  science  is  similarly  situated  ;  for  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  has  in  this  respect  made  a  change  in  his 
position  which,  curiously  enough,  brings  it  closer  to 
that  occupied  in  this  matter  by  theology  and  ethics 
than  it  was  in  the  days  when  '  special  creation  '  was 
the  fashionable  view. 

I  am  not  contending,  be  it  observed,  that  evolu- 
tion strengthens  the  evidence  for  theism.  My  point 
rather  is,  that  if  the  existence  of  God  be  assumed, 


32o  SCIENCE    AND   THEOLOGY 

evolution  does,  to  a  certain  extent,  harmonise  with 
that  belief  in  His  'preferential action'  which  religion 
and  morality  alike  require  us  to  attribute  to  Him. 
For  whereas  the  material  and  organic  world  was 
once  supposed  to  have  been  created  '  all  of  a  piece,' 
and  to  show  contrivance  on  the  part  of  its  Author 
merely  by  the  machine-like  adjustment  of  its  parts, 
so  now  science  has  adopted  an  idea  which  has  always 
been  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian  view  of  the 
Divine  economy,  has  given  to  that  idea  an  un- 
dreamed-of extension,  has  applied  it  to  the  whole 
universe  of  phenomena,  organic  and  inorganic, 
and  has  returned  it  again  to  theology  enriched, 
strengthened,  and  developed.  Can  we,  then,  think 
of  evolution  in  a  God-created  world  without  attri- 
buting to  its  Author  the  notion  of  purpose  slowly 
worked  out;  the  striving  towards  something  which  is 
not,  but  which  gradually  becomes,  and  in  the  fulness 
of  time  will  be  ?  Surely  not.  But,  if  not,  can  it  be 
denied  that  evolution — the  evolution,  I  mean,  which 
takes  place  in  time,  the  natural  evolution  of  science, 
as  distinguished  from  the  dialectical  evolution  of 
metaphysics — does  involve  something  in  the  nature 
of  that  '  preferential  action  '  which  it  is  so  difficult 
to  understand,  yet  so  impossible  to  abandon  ? 


321 


CHAPTER   VI 

SUGGESTIONS    TOWARDS    A    PROVISIONAL    UNIFICATION 


But  if  I  confined  myself  to  saying  that  the  belief 
in  a  God  who  is  not  merely  '  substance,'  or  '  subject,' 
but  is,  in  Biblical  language,  '  a  living  God,'  affords  no 
ground  of  quarrel  between  theology  and  science,  I 
should  much  understate  my  thought.  I  hold,  on  the 
contrary,  that  some  such  presupposition  is  not  only 
tolerated,  but  is  actually  required,  by  science  ;  that  if 
it  be  accepted  in  the  case  of  science,  it  can  hardly  be 
refused  in  the  case  of  ethics,  aesthetics,  or  theology ; 
and  that  if  it  be  thus  accepted  as  a  general  principle, 
applicable  to  the  whole  circuit  of  belief,  it  will  be 
found  to  provide  us  with  a  working  solution  of  some, 
at  least,  of  the  difficulties  with  which  naturalism  is 
incompetent  to  deal. 

For  what  was  it  that  lay  at  the  bottom  of  those 
difficulties  ?  Speaking  broadly,  it  may  be  described 
as  the  perpetual  collision,  the  ineffaceable  incon- 
gruity, between  the  origin  of  our  beliefs,  in  so  far  as 
these  can  be  revealed  to  us  by  science,  and  the 
beliefs  themselves.  This  it  was  that,  as  I  showed 
in  the  first  part  of  this  Essay,  touched  with  the  frost 

Y 


322  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

of  scepticism  our  ideals  of  conduct  and  our  ideals  of 
beauty.  This  it  was  that,  as  I  showed  in  the  Second 
Part,  cut  down  scientific  philosophy  to  the  root.  And 
all  the  later  discussions  with  which  I  have  occupied 
the  attention  of  the  reader  serve  but  to  emphasise 
afresh  the  inextricable  confusion  which  the  natura- 
listic hypothesis  introduces  into  every  department 
of  practice  and  of  speculation,  by  refusing  to  allow 
us  to  penetrate  beyond  the  phenomenal  causes  by 
which,  in  the  order  of  Nature,  our  beliefs  are 
produced. 

Review  each  of  these  departments  in  turn,  and, 
in  the  light  of  the  preceding  discussion,  compare  its 
position  in  a  theological  setting  with  that  which  it 
necessarily  occupies  in  a  naturalistic  one.  Let  the 
case  of  science  be  taken  first,  for  it  is  a  crucial  one. 
Here,  if  anywhere,  we  might  suppose  ourselves 
independent  of  theology.  Here,  if  anywhere,  we 
might  expect  to  be  able  to  acquiesce  without  em- 
barrassment in  the  negations  of  naturalism.  But 
when  once  we  have  realised  the  scientific  truth  that 
at  the  root  of  every  rational  process  lies  an  irrational 
one  ;  that  reason,  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  is 
itself  a  natural  product  ;  and  that  the  whole  material 
on  which  it  works  is  due  to  causes,  physical,  physio- 
logical, and  social,  which  it  neither  creates  nor 
controls,  we  shall  (as  I  showed  just  now)  be  driven 
in  mere  self-defence  to  hold  that,  behind  these  non- 
rational  forces,  and  above  them,  guiding  them  by 
slow  degrees,  and,  as  it  were,  with  difficulty,  to  a 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  323 

rational  issue,  stands  that  Supreme  Reason  in  whom 
we  must  thus  believe,  if  we  are  to  believe  in  any- 
thing. 

Here,  then,  we  are  plunged  at  once  into  the  middle 
of  theology.  The  belief  in  God,  the  attribution  to 
Him  of  reason,  and  of  what  I  have  called  '  prefer- 
ential action  '  in  relation  to  the  world  which  He  has 
created,  all  seem  forced  upon  us  by  the  single 
assumption  that  science  is  not  an  illusion,  and  that, 
with  the  rest  of  its  teaching,  we  must  accept  what  it 
has  to  say  to  us  about  itself  as  a  natural  product. 
At  no  smaller  cost  can  we  reconcile  the  origins  of 
science  with  its  pretensions,  or  relieve  ourselves  of 
the  embarrassments  in  which  we  are  involved  by  a 
naturalistic  theory  of  Nature.  But  evidently  the 
admission,  if  once  made,  cannot  stand  alone.  It  is 
impossible  to  refuse  to  ethical  beliefs  what  we  have 
already  conceded  to  scientific  beliefs.  For  the 
analogy  between  them  is  complete.  Both  are  natural 
products.  Neither  rank  among  their  remoter  causes 
any  which  share  their  essence.  And  as  it  is  easy  to 
trace  back  our  scientific  beliefs  to  sources  which  have 
about  them  nothing  which  is  rational,  so  it  is  easy  to 
trace  back  our  ethical  beliefs  to  sources  which  have 
about  them  nothing  which  is  ethical.  Both  require 
us,  therefore,  to  seek  behind  these  phenomenal 
sources  for  some  ultimate  ground  with  which  they 
shall  be  congruous  ;  and  as  we  have  been  moved  to 
postulate  a  rational  God  in  the  interests  of  science, 

Y  2 


324  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

so  we  can  scarcely  decline  to  postulate  a  moral  God 
in  the  interests  of  morality. 

But,  manifestly,  those  who  have  gone  thus  far 
cannot  rest  here.  If  we  are  to  assign  a  'providential' 
origin  to  the  long  and  complex  train  of  events  which 
have  resulted  in  the  recognition  of  a  moral  law,  we 
must  embrace  within  the  same  theory  those  senti- 
ments and  influences,  without  which  a  moral  law 
would  tend  to  become  a  mere  catalogue  of  command- 
ments, possessed,  it  maybe,  of  an  undisputed  authority, 
but  obtaining  on  that  account  but  little  obedience. 
This  was  the  point  on  which  I  dwelt  at  length  in  the 
first  portion  of  this  Essay.  I  then  showed,  that  if  the 
pedigrees  of  conscience,  of  our  ethical  ideals,  of  our 
capacity  for  admiration,  for  sympathy,  for  repentance, 
for  righteous  indignation,  were  finally  to  lose  them- 
selves among  the  accidental  variations  on  which 
Selection  does  its  work,  it  was  inconceivable  that 
they  should  retain  their  virtue  when  once  the  creed 
of  naturalism  had  thoroughly  penetrated  and  dis- 
coloured every  mood  of  thought  and  belief.  But  if, 
deserting  naturalism,  we  regard  the  evolutionary 
process  issuing  in  these  ethical  results  as  an  instru- 
ment for  carrying  out  a  Divine  purpose,  the  natural 
history  of  the  higher  sentiments  is  seen  under  a 
wholly  different  light.  They  maybe  due,  doubtless 
they  are  in  fact  due,  to  the  same  selective  mechanism 
which  produces  the  most  cruel  and  the  most  disgust- 
ing of  Nature's  contrivances  for  protecting  the  species 
of  some  loathsome  parasite.      Between  the  two  cases 


A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  325 

science  cannot,  and  naturalism  will  not,  draw  any 
valid  distinction.  But  here  theology  steps  in,  and 
by  the  conception  of  design  revolutionises  our  point 
of  view.  The  most  unlovely  germ  of  instinct  or  of 
appetite  to  which  we  trace  back  the  origin  of  all  that 
is  most  noble  and  of  good  report,  no  longer  throws 
discredit  upon  its  developed  offshoots.  Rather  is 
it  consecrated  by  them.  For  if,  in  the  region  of 
Causation,  it  is  wholly  by  the  earlier  stages  that  the 
later  are  determined,  in  the  region  of  Design  it  is 
only  through  the  later  stages  that  the  earlier  can  be 
understood. 

But  if  these  be  the  consequences  which  flow  from 
substituting  a  theological  for  a  naturalistic  interpreta- 
tion of  science,  of  ethics,  and  of  ethical  sentiments, 
what  changes  will  the  same  process  effect  in  our 
conception  of  aesthetics  ?  Naturalism,  as  we  saw, 
destroys  the  possibility  of  objective  beauty — of 
beauty  as  a  real,  persistent  quality  of  objects  ;  and 
leaves  nothing  but  feelings  of  beauty  on  the  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of 
objects,  called  beautiful  in  their  moments  of  favour, 
by  which,  through  the  chance  operation  of  obscure 
associations,  at  some  period,  and  in  some  persons, 
these  feelings  of  beauty  are  aroused.  A  conclusion 
of  this  kind  no  doubt  leaves  us  chilled  and  depressed 
spectators  of  our  own  aesthetic  enthusiasms.  And 
it  may  be  that  to  put  the  scientific  theory  in  a  theo- 
logical setting,  instead  of  in  a  naturalistic  one,  will 
not  wholly  remove  the  unsatisfactory  effect  which 


326  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

the  theory  itself  may  leave  upon  the  mind.  And 
yet  it  surely  does  something.  If  we  cannot  say  that 
Beauty  is  in  any  particular  case  an  '  objective '  fact, 
in  the  sense  in  which  science  requires  us  to  believe 
that  'mass,'  for  example,  and  'configuration,'  are 
'objective'  facts,  we  are  not  precluded  on  that 
account  from  referring  our  feeling  of  it  to  God,  nor 
from  supposing  that  in  the  thrill  of  some  deep 
emotion  we  have  for  an  instant  caught  a  far-off 
reflection  of  Divine  beauty.  This  is,  indeed,  my  faith  ; 
and  in  it  the  differences  of  taste  which  divide  man- 
kind lose  all  their  harshness.  For  we  may  liken 
ourselves  to  the  members  of  some  endless  proces- 
sion winding  along  the  borders  of  a  sunlit  lake. 
Towards  each  individual  there  will  shine  along  its 
surface  a  moving  lane  of  splendour,  where  the  ripples 
catch  and  deflect  the  light  in  his  direction  ;  while  on 
either  hand  the  waters,  which  to  his  neighbour's  eyes 
are  brilliant  in  the  sun,  for  him  lie  dull  and  undistin- 
guished. So  may  all  possess  a  like  enjoyment  of  loveli- 
ness.    So  do  all  owe  it  to  one  unchanging  Source. 

CD         O 

And  if  there  be  an  endless  variety  in  the  immediate 
objects  from  which  we  severally  derive  it,  I  know  not, 
after  all,  that  this  should  furnish  any  matter  for  regret. 


And,  lastly,  we  come  to  theology,  denied  by 
naturalism  to  be  a  branch  of  knowledge  at  all,  but 
whose   truth   we   have  been   obliged  to  assume  in 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  327 

order  to  find  a  basis  for  the  only  knowledge  which 
naturalism  allows. 

Those  who  are  prepared  to  admit  that,  in  dealing 
with  the  causes  of  scientific  and  ethical  belief,  the 
theory  which  offers  least  difficulty  is  that  which 
assumes  them  to  have  been  '  providentially '  guided, 
are  not  likely  to  raise  objections  to  a  similar  theory 
in  the  case  of  religion.  For  here,  at  least,  might  we 
expect  preferential  Divine  intervention,  supposing 
such  intervention  were  anywhere  possible.  Much 
more,  then,  if  it  be  accepted  as  actual  in  other  regions 
of  belief.  And  this  is,  in  fact,  the  ordinary  view  of 
mankind.  They  have  almost  always  claimed  for 
their  beliefs  about  God  that  they  were  due  to  God. 
The  belief  in  religion  has  almost  always  carried  with 
it,  in  some  shape  or  other,  the  belief  in  Inspiration. 

To  this  rule  there  is,  no  doubt,  to  be  found  an 
apparent  exception  in  what  is  known  as  natural 
religion — natural  religion  being  defined  as  the 
religion  to  which  unassisted  reason  may  attain,  in 
contrast  to  that  which  can  be  reached  only  by  the 
aid  of  revelation.  But,  for  my  own  part,  I  object 
altogether  to  the  theory  underlying  this  distinction. 
I  do  not  believe  that,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  any 
such  thing  as  '  unassisted  reason.'  And  I  am  sure 
that  if  there  be,  the  conclusions  of  '  natural  religion  ' 
are  not  among  its  products.  The  attentive  reader 
does  not  require  to  be  told  that,  according  to  the 
views  here  advocated,  every  idea  involved  in  such  a 
proposition  as  that  '  There  is  a  moral  Creator  and 


328  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

Ruler  of  the  world'  (which  I  may  assume,  for 
purposes  of  illustration,  to  constitute  the  substance 
of  natural  religion)  is  due  to  a  complex  of  causes,  of 
which  human  reason  was  not  the  most  important ;  and 
that  this  natural  religion  never  would  have  been 
heard  of,  much  less  have  been  received  with  approval, 
had  it  not  been  for  that  traditional  religion  of  which  it 
vainly  supposes  itself  to  be  independent. 

But  if  this  way  of  considering  the  matter  be  ac- 
cepted ;  if  we  are  to  apply  unaltered,  in  the  case 
of  religious  beliefs,  the  procedure  already  adopted  in 
the  case  of  scientific,  ethical,  and  aesthetic  beliefs, 
and  assume  for  them  a  Cause  harmonious  with  their 
essential  nature,  we  must  evidently  in  so  doing  trans- 
cend the  common  division  between  '  natural '  and 
'  supernatural.'  We  cannot  consent  to  see  the  '  pre- 
ferential working  of  Divine  power'  only  in  those 
religious  manifestations  which  refuse  to  accommodate 
themselves  to  our  conception  (whatever  that  may  be) 
of  the  strictly  '  natural '  order  of  the  world  ;  nor  can 
we  deny  a  Divine  origin  to  those  aspects  of  religious 
development  which  natural  laws  seem  competent  to 
explain.  The  familiar  distinction,  indeed,  between 
'  natural '  and  '  supernatural '  coincides  neither  with 
that  between  natural  and  spiritual,  nor  with  that 
between  '  preferential  action '  and  '  non-preferential,' 
nor  with  that  between  '  phenomenal '  and  '  noumenal.' 
It  is,  perhaps,  less  important  than  is  sometimes  sup- 
posed ;  and  in  this  particular  connection,  at  all 
events,  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  merely  irrelevant  and 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  329 

confusing — a  burden,  not  an  aid,  to  religious  specu- 
lation. 

For,  whatever  difference  there  may  be  between 
the  growth  of  theological  knowledge  and  of  other 
knowledge,  their  resemblances  are  both  numerous 
and  instructive.  In  both  we  note  that  movement  has 
been  sometimes  so  rapid  as  to  be  revolutionary,  some- 
times so  slow  as  to  be  imperceptible.  In  both,  that  it 
has  been  sometimes  an  advance,  sometimes  a  retro- 
gression. In  both,  that  it  has  been  sometimes  on  lines 
permittingalong,  perhaps  an  indefinite,  development, 
sometimes  in  directions  where  farther  progress  seems 
barred  for  ever.  In  both,  that  the  higher  is,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  science,  largely  produced  by  the  lower. 
In  both,  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  provi- 
sional philosophy,  the  lower  is  only  to  be  explained 
by  the  higher.  In  both,  that  the  final  product  counts 
among  its  causes  a  vast  multitude  of  physiological, 
psychological,  political,  and  social  antecedents  with 
which  it  has  no  direct  rational  or  spiritual  affiliation. 

How,  then,  can  we  most  completely  absorb  these 
facts  into  our  theory  of  Inspiration  ?  It  would,  no 
doubt,  be  inaccurate  to  say  that  inspiration  is  that, 
seen  from  its  Divine  side,  which  we  call  discovery 
when  seen  from  the  human  side.  But  it  is  not,  I 
think,  inaccurate  to  say  that  every  addition  to  know- 
ledge, whether  in  the  individual  or  the  community, 
whether  scientific,  ethical,  or  theological,  is  due  to  a 
co-operation  between  the  human  soul  which  assimi- 
lates and  the  Divine  power  which  inspires.     Neither 


33° 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 


acts,  or,  as  far  as  we  can  pronounce  upon  such 
matters,  could  act,  in  independent  isolation.  For 
'unassisted  reason'  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  a  fiction; 
and  pure  receptivity  it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 
Even  the  emptiest  vessel  must  limit  the  quantity  and 
determine  the  configuration  of  any  liquid  with  which 
it  may  be  filled. 

But  because  this  view  involves  a  use  of  the  term 
1  inspiration '  which,  ignoring  all  minor  distinctions, 
extends  it  to  every  case  in  which  the  production  of 
belief  is  due  to  the  '  preferential  action '  of  Divine 
power,  it  does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  minor  dis- 
tinctions do  not  exist.  All  I  wish  here  to  insist  on 
is,  that  the  sphere  of  Divine  influence  in  matters  of 
belief  exists  as  a  whole,  and  may  therefore  be  studied 
as  a  whole ;  and  that,  not  improbably,  to  study  it  as 
a  whole  would  prove  no  unprofitable  preliminary  to 
any  examination  into  the  character  of  its  more  im- 
portant parts. 

So  studied,  it  becomes  evident  that  Inspiration,  if 
this  use  of  the  word  is  to  be  allowed,  is  limited  to  no 
age,  to  no  country,  to  no  people.  It  is  required  by 
those  who  learn  not  less  than  by  those  who  teach. 
Wherever  an  approach  has  been  made  to  truth, 
wherever  any  individual  soul  has  assimilated  some 
old  discovery,  or  has  forced  the  secret  of  a  new  one, 
there  is  its  co-operation  to  be  discovered.  Its  work- 
ings are  to  be  traced  not  merely  in  the  later  develop- 
ment of  beliefs,  but  far  back  among  their  unhonoured 
beginnings.      Its  aid  has  been  granted  not  merely 


A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  331 

along  the  main  line  of  religious  progress,  but  in  the 
side-alleys  to  which  there  seems  no  issue.  Are  we, 
for  example,  to  find  a  full  measure  of  inspiration  in 
the  highest  utterances  of  Hebrew  prophet  or  psalmist, 
and  to  suppose  that  the  primitive  religious  concep- 
tions common  to  the  Semitic  race  had  in  them  no 
touch  of  the  Divine  ?  Hardly,  if  we  also  believe  that 
it  was  these  primitive  conceptions  which  the  '  Chosen 
People '  were  divinely  ordained  to  purify,  to  elevate, 
and  to  expand  until  they  became  fitting  elements  in 
a  religion  adequate  to  the  necessities  of  a  world. 
Are  we,  again,  to  deny  any  measure  of  inspiration 
to  the  ethico-religious  teaching  of  the  great  Oriental 
reformers,  because  there  was  that  in  their  general 
systems  of  doctrine  which  prevented,  and  still  pre- 
vents, these  from  merging  as  a  whole  in  the  main 
stream  of  religious  advance  ?  Hardly,  unless  we  are 
prepared  to  admit  that  men  may  gather  grapes  from 
thorns  or  figs  from  thistles.  These  things  assuredly 
are  of  God  ;  and  whatever  be  the  terms  in  which  we 
choose  to  express  our  faith,  let  us  not  give  colour  to 
the  opinion  that  His  assistance  to  mankind  has  been 
narrowed  down  to  the  sources,  however  unique,  from 
which  we  immediately,  and  consciously,  draw  our 
own  spiritual  nourishment. 

If  a  preference  is  shown  by  any  for  a  more 
limited  conception  of  the  Divine  intervention  in 
matters  of  belief,  it  must,  I  suppose,  be  on  one  of 
two  grounds.  It  may,  in  the  first  place,  arise  out  of 
a  natural  reluctance  to  force  into  the  same  category 


332  A  PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION 

the  transcendent  intuitions  of  prophet  or  apostle 
and  the  stammering  utterances  of  earlier  faiths, 
clouded  as  these  are  by  human  ignorance  and  marred 
by  human  sin.  Things  spiritually  so  far  asunder 
ought  not,  it  may  be  thought,  by  any  system  of 
classification,  to  be  brought  together.  They  belong 
to  separate  worlds.  They  differ  not  merely  infinitely 
in  degree,  but  absolutely  in  kind ;  and  a  risk  of 
serious  error  must  arise  if  the  same  term  is  loosely 
and  hastily  applied  to  things  which,  in  their  essential 
nature,  lie  so  far  apart. 

Now,  that  there  may  be,  or,  rather,  plainly  are, 
many  modes  in  which  belief  is  assisted  by  Divine 
co-operation  I  have  already  admitted.  That  the 
word  '  inspiration '  may,  with  advantage,  be  confined 
to  one  or  more  of  these  I  do  not  desire  to  deny. 
It  is  a  question  of  theological  phraseology,  on  which 
I  am  not  competent  to  pronounce  ;  and  if  I  have 
seized  upon  the  word  for  the  purposes  of  my  argu- 
ment, it  is  with  no  desire  to  confound  any  distinction 
which  ought  to  be  preserved,  but  because  there  is  no 
other  term  which  so  pointedly  expresses  that  Divine 
element  in  the  formation  of  beliefs  on  which  it  was 
my  business  to  lay  stress.  This,  if  my  theory  be 
true,  does,  after  all,  exist,  howsoever  it  may  be 
described,  to  the  full  extent  which  I  have  indicated  ; 
and  though  the  beliefs  which  it  assists  in  producing 
differ  infinitely  from  one  another  in  their  nearness 
to  absolute  truth,  the  fact  is  not  disguised,  nor  the 
honour  due  to  the  most  spiritually  perfect  utterances 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  333 

in  aught  imperilled,  by  recognising  in  all  some  marks 
of  Divine  intervention. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  it  may  be  objected  that 
inspiration  thus  broadly  conceived  is  incapable  of 
providing  mankind  with  any  satisfactory  criterion  of 
religious  truth.  Since  its  co-operation  can  be  traced 
in  so  much  that  is  imperfect,  the  mere  fact  of  its  co- 
operation cannot  in  any  particular  case  be  a  protection 
even  against  gross  error.  If,  therefore,  we  seek  in 
it  not  merely  a  Divinely  ordered  cause  of  belief,  but 
also  a  Divinely  ordered  ground  for  believing,  there 
must  be  some  means  of  marking  off  those  examples 
of  its  operation  which  rightfully  command  our  full 
intellectual  allegiance,  from  those  which  are  no  more 
than  evidences  of  an  influence  towards  the  truth 
working  out  its  purpose  slowly  through  the  ages. 

This  is  beyond  dispute.  Nothing  that  I  have  said 
about  inspiration  in  general  as  a  source  of  belief 
affects  in  any  way  the  character  of  certain  instances 
of  inspiration  as  an  authority  for  belief.  Nor  was  it 
intended  to  do  so  ;  for  the  problem,  or  group  of 
problems,  which  would  thus  have  been  raised  is 
altogether  beside  the  main  course  of  my  argument. 
They  belong,  not  to  an  Introduction  to  Theology, 
but  to  Theology  itself.  Whether  there  is  an  authority 
in  religious  matters  of  a  kind  altogether  without 
parallel  in  scientific  or  ethical  matters  ;  what,  if  it 
exists,  is  its  character,  and  whence  come  its  claims 
to  our  obedience,  are  questions  on  which  theologians 
have  differed,  and  still  differ,  and  which  it  is  quite 


334  A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

beyond  my  province  to  decide.  For  the  subject  of 
this  Essay  is  the  'foundations  of  belief/  and,  as  I 
have  already  indicated,1  the  kind  of  authority  con- 
templated by  theologians  is  never  '  fundamental,'  in 
the  sense  in  which  that  word  is  here  used.  The 
deliverances  of  no  organisation,  of  no  individual,  of 
no  record,  can  lie  at  the  roots  of  belief  as  reason, 
whatever  they  may  do  as  cause.  It  is  always  possible 
to  ask  whence  these  claimants  to  authority  derive 
their  credentials,  what  titles  the  organisation  or  the 
individual  possesses  to  our  obedience,  whether  the 
records  are  authentic,  and  what  is  their  precise  im- 
port. And  the  mere  fact  that  such  questions  may 
be  put,  and  that  they  can  neither  be  thrust  aside  as 
irrelevant  nor  be  answered  without  elaborate  critical 
and  historical  discussion,  shows  clearly  enough  that 
we  have  no  business  with  them  here.  • 


in 
But  although  it  is  evidently  beyond  the  scope  of 
this  work  to  enter  upon  even  an  elementary  discus- 
sion of  theological  method,  it  seems  right  that  I 
should  endeavour,  in  strict  continuation  of  the  argu- 
ment of  this  chapter,  to  say  something  on  the  source 
from  which,  according  to  Christianity,  any  religious 
authority  whatever  must  ultimately  derive  its  jurisdic- 
tion. What  I  have  so  far  tried  to  establish  is  this — 
that  the  great  body  of  our  beliefs,  scientific,  ethical, 

1  See  ante,  chapter  on  Authority  and  Reason. 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  335 

theological,  form  a  more  coherent  and  satisfactory 
whole  if  we  consider  them  in  a  Theistic  setting, 
than  if  we  consider  them  in  a  Naturalistic  one. 
The  further  question,  therefore,  inevitably  suggests 
itself,  Whether  we  can  carry  the  process  a  step 
further,  and  say  that  they  are  more  coherent  and 
satisfactory  if  considered  in  a  Christian  setting  than 
in  a  merely  Theistic  one  ? 

The  answer  often  given  is  in  the  negative.  It  is 
always  assumed  by  those  who  do  not  accept  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  and  it  is  not  uncommonly 
conceded  by  those  who  do,  that  it  constitutes  an 
additional  burden  upon  faith,  a  new  stumbling-block 
to  reason.  And  many  who  are  prepared  to  accom- 
modate their  beliefs  to  the  requirements  of  (so-called) 
1  Natural  Religion,'  shrink  from  the  difficulties  and 
perplexities  in  which  this  central  mystery  of  Revealed 
Religion  threatens  to  involve  them.  But  what  are 
these  difficulties  ?  Clearly  they  are  not  scientific. 
We  are  here  altogether  outside  the  region  where 
scientific  ideas  possess  any  worth,  or  scientific  cate- 
gories claim  any  authority.  It  may  be  a  realm  of 
shadows,  of  empty  dreams,  and  vain  speculations. 
But  whether  it  be  this,  or  whether  it  be  the  abiding:- 
place  of  the  highest  Reality,  it  evidently  must  be 
explored  by  methods  other  than  those  provided  for 
us  by  the  accepted  canons  of  experimental  research. 
Even  when  we  are  endeavouring  to  comprehend  the 
relation  of  our  own  finite  personalities  to  the  material 
environment  with  which  they  are  so  intimately  con- 


336  A   PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION 

nected,  we  find,  as  we  have  seen,  that  all  familiar 
modes  of  explanation  break  down  and  become 
meaningless.  Yet  we  certainly  exist,  and  presumably 
we  have  bodies.  If,  then,  we  cannot  devise  formulae 
which  shall  elucidate  the  familiar  mystery  of  our 
daily  existence,  we  need  neither  be  surprised  nor 
embarrassed  if  the  unique  mystery  of  the  Christian 
faith  refuses  to  lend  itself  to  inductive  treatment. 

But  though  the  very  uniqueness  of  the  doctrine 
places  it  beyond  the  ordinary  range  of  scientific 
criticism,  the  same  cannot  be  said  for  the  historical 
evidence  on  which,  in  part  at  least,  it  rests.  Here, 
it  will  perhaps  be  urged,  we  are  on  solid  and  familiar 
ground.  We  have  only  got  to  ignore  the  arbi- 
trary distinction  between  'sacred'  and  'secular,' 
and  apply  the  well-understood  methods  of  historic 
criticism  to  a  particular  set  of  ancient  records,  in 
order  to  extract  from  them  all  that  is  necessary  to 
satisfy  our  curiosity.  If  they  break  down  under 
cross-examination,  we  need  trouble  ourselves  no 
further  about  the  metaphysical  dogmas  to  which 
they  point.  No  immunity  or  privilege  claimed  for 
the  subject-matter  of  belief  can  extend  to  the  merely 
human  evidence  adduced  in  its  support ;  and  as  in 
the  last  resort  the  historical  element  in  Christianity 
does  evidently  rest  on  human  testimony,  nothing 
can  be  simpler  than  to  subject  this  to  the  usual 
scientific  tests,  and  accept  with  what  equanimity  we 
may  any  results  which  they  elicit. 

But,  in  truth,  the  question  is  not  so  simple  as 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  337 

those  who  make  use  of  arguments  like  these  would 
have  us  suppose.  '  Historic  method '  has  its  limita- 
tions. It  is  self-sufficient  only  within  an  area  which 
is,  indeed,  tolerably  extensive,  but  which  does  not 
embrace  the  universe.  For,  without  taking  any  very 
deep  plunge  into  the  philosophy  of  historical  criticism, 
we  may  easily  perceive  that  our  judgment  as  to  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  any  particular  historic  statement 
depends,  partly  on  our  estimate  of  the  writer's  trust- 
worthiness, partly  on  our  estimate  of  his  means  of 
information,  partly  on  our  estimate  of  the  intrinsic 
probability  of  the  facts  to  which  he  testifies.  But 
these  things  are  not  '  independent  variables,'  to  be 
measuied  separately  before  their  results  are  balanced 
and  summed  up.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  manifest 
that,  in  many  cases,  our  opinions  on  the  trust- 
worthiness and  competence  of  the  witnesses  is 
modified  by  our  opinion  as  to  the  inherent  likeli- 
hood of  what  they  tell  us  ;  and  that  our  opinion 
as  to  the  inherent  likelihood  of  what  they  tell  us 
may  depend  on  considerations  with  respect  to  which 
no  historical  method  is  able  to  give  us  any  con- 
clusive information.  In  most  cases,  no  doubt,  these 
questions  of  antecedent  probability  have  to  be  them- 
selves decided  solely,  or  mainly,  on  historic  grounds, 
and,  failing  anything  more  scientific,  by  a  kind  of 
historic  instinct.  But  other  cases  there  are,  though 
they  be  rare,  to  whose  consideration  we  must  bring 
larger  principles,  drawn  from  a  wider  theory  of  the 
world  ;  and  among  these  should  be  counted  as  first, 

z 


338  A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

both  in  speculative  interest  and  in  ethical  importance, 
the  early  records  of  Christianity. 

That  this  has  been  done,  and,  from  their  own 
point  of  view,  quite  rightly  done,  by  various 
destructive  schools  of  New  Testament  criticism, 
everyone  is  aware.  Starting  from  a  philosophy 
which  forbade  them  to  accept  much  of  the  substance 
of  the  Gospel  narrative,  they  very  properly  set  to 
work  to  devise  a  variety  of  hypotheses  which  would 
account  for  the  fact  that  the  narrative,  with  all  its 
peculiarities,  was  nevertheless  there.  Of  these 
hypotheses  there  are  many,  and  some  of  them  have 
occasioned  an  admirable  display  of  erudite  ingenuity, 
fruitful  of  instruction  from  every  point  of  view,  and 
for  all  time.  But  it  is  a  great,  though  common, 
error  to  describe  these  learned  efforts  as  examples 
of  the  unbiassed  application  of  historic  methods  to 
historic  documents.  It  would  be  more  correct  to 
say  that  they  are  endeavours,  by  the  unstinted 
employment  of  an  elaborate  critical  apparatus,  to 
force  the  testimony  of  existing  records  into  con- 
formity with  theories  on  the  truth  or  falsity  of  which 
it  is  for  philosophy,  not  history,  to  pronounce. 
What  view  I  take  of  the  particular  philosophy  to 
which  these  critics  make  appeal  the  reader  already 
knows  ;  and  our  immediate  concern  is  not  again  to 
discuss  the  presuppositions  with  which  other  people 
have  approached  the  consideration  of  New  Testa- 
ment history,  but  to  arrive  at  some  conclusion  about 
our  own. 


A   PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION  339 

How,  then,  ought  the  general  theory  of  things  at 
which  we  have  arrived  to  affect  our  estimate  of  the 
antecedent  probability  of  the  Christian  views  of 
Christ  ?  Or,  if  such  a  phrase  as  '  antecedent 
probability '  be  thought  to  suggest  a  much  greater 
nicety  of  calculation  than  is  at  all  possible  in  a  case 
like  this,  in  what  temper  of  mind,  in  what  mood  of 
expectation,  ought  our  provisional  philosophy  to 
induce  us  to  consider  the  extant  historic  evidence 
for  the  Christian  story  ?  The  reply  must,  I  think, 
depend,  as  I  shall  show  in  a  moment,  upon  the  view 
we  take  of  the  ethical  import  of  Christianity  ;  while 
its  ethical  import,  again,  must  depend  on  the  degree 
to  which  it  ministers  to  our  ethical  needs. 


IV 

Now  ethical  needs,  important  though  they  are, 
occupy  no  great  space,  as  a  rule,  in  the  works  of 
ethical  writers.  I  do  not  say  this  by  way  of 
criticism ;  for  I  grant  that  any  examination  into 
these  needs  would  have  only  an  indirect  bearing  on 
the  essential  subject-matter  of  ethical  philosophy, 
since  no  inquiry  into  their  nature,  history,  or  value 
would  help  either  to  establish  the  fundamental 
principles  of  a  moral  code  or  to  elaborate  its  details. 
But,  after  all,  as  I  have  said  before,  an  assortment 
of  '  categorical  imperatives,'  however  authoritative 
and  complete,  supplies  but  a  meagre  outfit  where- 
with   to   meet   the   storms   and    stresses   of  actual 

z  2 


34o  A  PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION 

experience.  If  we  are  to  possess  a  practical  system, 
which  shall  not  merely  tell  men  what  they  ought 
to  do,  but  assist  them  to  do  it  ;  still  more,  if  we  are 
to  regard  the  spiritual  quality  of  the  soul  as  pos- 
sessing an  intrinsic  value  not  to  be  wholly  measured 
by  the  external  actions  to  which  it  gives  rise,  much 
more  than  this  will  be  required.  It  will  not  only  be 
necessary  to  claim  the  assistance  of  those  ethical 
aspirations  and  ideals  which  are  not  less  effectual 
for  their  purpose  though  nothing  corresponding  to 
them  should  exist,  but  it  will  also  be  necessary,  if  it 
be  possible,  to  meet  those  ethical  needs  which  must 
work  more  harm  than  good  unless  we  can  sustain 
the  belief  that  there  is  somewhere  to  be  found  a 
Reality  wherein  they  can  find  their  satisfaction. 

These  are  facts  of  moral  psychology  which,  thus 
broadly  stated,  nobody,  I  think,  will  be  disposed  to 
dispute,  although  the  widest  differences  of  opinion 
may  and  do  prevail  as  to  the  character,  number  and 
relative  importance  of  the  ethical  needs  thus  called 
into  existence  by  ethical  commands.  It  is,  further, 
certain,  though  more  difficulty  may  be  felt  in 
admitting  it,  that  these  needs  can  be  satisfied  in 
many  cases  but  imperfectly,  in  some  cases  not  at  all, 
without  the  aid  of  theology  and  of  theological 
sanctions.  One  commonly  recognised  ethical  need,- 
for  example,  is  for  harmony  between  the  interests  of 
the  individual  and  those  of  the  community.  In  a 
rude  and  limited  fashion,  and  for  a  very  narrow  circle 
of  ethical   commands,   this  is  deliberately  provided 


A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  341 

by  the  prison  and  the  scaffold,  the  whole  machinery 
of  the  criminal  law.  It  is  provided,  with  less 
deliberation,  but  with  greater  delicacy  of  adjustment, 
and  over  a  wider  area  of  duty,  by  the  operation  of 
public  opinion.  But  it  can  be  provided,  with  any 
approach  to  theoretical  perfection,  only  by  a  future 
life,  such  as  that  which  is  assumed  in  more  than 
one  system  of  religious  belief. 

Now  the  question  is  at  once  suggested  by  cases 
of  this  kind  whether,  and,  if  so,  under  what  limita- 
tions, we  can  argue  from  the  existence  of  an  ethical 
need  to  the  reality  of  the  conditions  under  which 
alone  it  would  be  satisfied.  Can  we,  for  example, 
argue  from  the  need  for  some  complete  correspond- 
ence between  virtue  and  felicity,  to  the  reality  of 
another  world  than  this,  where  such  a  correspondence 
will  be  completely  effected  ?  A  great  ethical  philo- 
sopher has,  in  substance,  asserted  that  we  can.  He 
held  that  the  reality  of  the  Moral  Law  implied  the 
reality  of  a  sphere  where  it  could  for  ever  be  obeyed, 
under  conditions  satisfactory  to  the  '  Practical 
Reason '  ;  and  it  was  thus  that  he  found  a  place  in 
his  system  for  Freedom,  for  Immortality,  and  for  God. 
The  metaphysical  machinery,  indeed,  by  which  Kant 
endeavoured  to  secure  these  results  is  of  a  kind  which 
we  cannot  employ.  But  we  may  well  ask  whether 
somewhat  similar  inferences  are  not  fitting  portions 
of  the  provisional  philosophy  I  am  endeavouring  to 
recommend  ;  and,  in  particular,  whether  they  do  not 
harmonise  with  the  train  of  thought  we  have  been 


342  A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

pursuing  in  the  course  of  this  Chapter.  If  the  reality 
of  scientific  and  of  ethical  knowledge  forces  us  to 
assume  the  existence  of  a  rational  and  moral  Deity, 
by  whose  preferential  assistance  they  have  gradually 
come  into  existence,  must  we  not  suppose  that  the 
Power  which  has  thus  produced  in  man  the  know- 
ledge of  right  and  wrong,  and  has  added  to  it  the 
faculty  of  creating  ethical  ideals,  must  have  provided 
some  satisfaction  for  the  ethical  needs  which  the 
historical  development  of  the  spiritual  life  has 
gradually  called  into  existence  ? 

Manifestly  the  argument  in  this  shape  is  one 
which  must  be  used  with  caution.  To  reason  purely 
a  priori  from  our  general  notions  concerning  the 
working  of  Divine  Providence  to  the  reality  of 
particular  historic  events  in  time,  or  to  the  preva- 
lence of  particular  conditions  of  existence  through 
eternity,  would  imply  a  knowledge  of  Divine  matters 
which  we  certainly  do  not  possess,  and  which,  our 
faculties  remaining  what  they  are,  a  revelation  from 
Heaven  could  not,  I  suppose,  communicate  to  us. 
My  contention,  at  all  events,  is  of  a  much  humbler 
kind.  I  confine  myself  to  asking  whether,  in  a 
universe  which,  by  hypothesis,  is  under  moral 
governance,  there  is  not  a  presumption  in  favour  of 
facts  or  events  which  minister,  if  true,  to  our  highest 
moral  demands  ?  and  whether  such  a  presumption,  if 
it  exists,  is  not  sufficient,  and  more  than  sufficient, 
to  neutralise  the  counter-presumption  which  has 
uncritically    governed    so    much    of    the    criticism 


A   PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION  343 

directed  in  recent  times  against  the  historic  claims 
of  Christianity  ?  For  my  own  part,  I  cannot  doubt 
that  both  these  questions  should  be  answered  in  the 
affirmative ;  and  if  the  reader  will  consider  the 
variety  of  ways  by  which  Christianity  is,  in  fact, 
fitted  effectually  to  minister  to  our  ethical  needs,  I 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  he  will  arrive  at  any 
different  conclusion. 

v 

I  need  not  say  that  no  complete  treatment  of 
this  question  is  contemplated  here.  Any  adequate 
survey  of  the  relation  in  which  Christianity  stands  to 
the  moral  needs  of  man  would  lead  us  into  the  very 
heart  of  theology,  and  would  require  us  to  consider 
topics  altogether  unsuited  to  these  controversial 
pages.  Yet  it  may,  perhaps,  be  found  possible  to 
illustrate  my  meaning  without  penetrating  far  into 
territories  more  properly  occupied  by  theologians  ; 
while,  at  the  same  time,  the  examples  of  which  I 
shall  make  use  may  serve  to  show  that,  among  the 
needs  ministered  to  by  Christianity,  are  some  which 
increase  rather  than  diminish  with  the  growth  of 
knowledge  and  the  progress  of  science  ;  and  that  this 
Religion  is  therefore  no  mere  reform,  appropriate 
only  to  a  vanished  epoch  in  the  history  of  culture 
and  civilisation,  but  a  development  of  theism  now 
more  necessary  to  us  than  ever. 

I  am  aware,  of  course,  that  this  may  seem  in 
strange  discord  with  opinions  very  commonly  held. 


344  A  PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

There  are  many  persons  who  suppose  that,  in  addition 
to  any  metaphysical  or  scientific  objections  to 
Christian  doctrines,  there  has  arisen  a  legitimate 
feeling  of  intellectual  repulsion  to  them,  directly  due 
to  our  more  extended  perception  of  the  magnitude 
and  complexity  of  the  material  world.  The  discovery 
of  Copernicus,  it  has  been  said,  is  the  death-blow  to 
Christianity  :  in  other  words,  the  recognition  by  the 
human  race  of  the  insignificant  part  which  they  and 
their  planet  play  in  the  cosmic  drama  renders  the 
Incarnation,  as  it  were,  intrinsically  incredible.  This 
is  not  a  question  of  logic,  or  science,  or  history.  No 
criticism  of  documents,  no  haggling  over  '  natural ' 
or  'supernatural,'  either  creates  the  difficulty  or  is 
able  to  solve  it.  For  it  arises  out  of  what  I  may 
almost  call  an  aesthetic  sense  of  disproportion. 
'  What  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him ;  and  the 
son  of  man,  that  Thou  visitest  him  ? '  is  a  question 
charged  by  science  with  a  weight  of  meaning  far 
beyond  what  it  could  have  borne  for  the  poet  whose 
lips  first  uttered  it.  And  those  whose  studies  bring 
perpetually  to  their  remembrance  the  immensity  of 
this  material  world,  who  know  how  brief  and  how 
utterly  imperceptible  is  the  impress  made  by  organic 
life  in  general,  and  by  human  life  in  particular,  upon 
the  mighty  forces  which  surround  them,  find  it  hard  to 
believe  that  on  so  small  an  occasion  this  petty  satellite 
of  no  very  important  sun  has  been  chosen  as  the 
theatre  of  an  event  so  solitary  and  so  stupendous. 
Reflection,  indeed,  shows  that  those  who  thus 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  345 

argue  have  manifestly  permitted  their  thoughts  about 
God  to  be  controlled  by  a  singular  theory  of  His 
relations  to  man  and  to  the  world,  based  on  an 
unbalanced  consideration  of  the  vastness  of  Nature. 
They  have  conceived  Him  as  moved  by  the 
mass  of  His  own  works  ;  as  lost  in  spaces  of  His 
own  creation.  Consciously  or  unconsciously,  they 
have  fallen  into  the  absurdity  of  supposing  that 
He  considers  His  creatures,  as  it  were,  with  the 
eyes  of  a  contractor  or  a  politician ;  that  He 
measures  their  value  according  to  their  physical  or 
intellectual  importance  ;  and  that  He  sets  store  by 
the  number  of  square  miles  they  inhabit  or  the  foot- 
pounds of  energy  they  are  capable  of  developing. 
In  truth,  the  inference  they  should  have  drawn 
is  of  precisely  the  opposite  kind.  The  very  sense 
of  the  place  occupied  in  the  material  universe  by 
man  the  intelligent  animal,  creates  in  man  the 
moral  being  a  new  need  for  Christianity,  which, 
before  science  measured  out  the  heavens  for  us, 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed.  Metaphysically 
speaking,  our  opinions  on  the  magnitude  and  com- 
plexity of  the  natural  world  should,  indeed,  have  no 
bearing  on  our  conception  of  God's  relation,  either 
to  us  or  to  it.  Though  we  supposed  the  sun  to 
have  been  created  some  six  thousand  years  ago, 
and  to  be  'about  the  size  of  the  Peloponnesus,' 
yet  the  fundamental  problems  concerning  time 
and  space,  matter  and  spirit,  God  and  man, 
would    not    on    that   account   have  to   be   formally 


346  A   PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION 

restated.  But  then,  we  are  not  creatures  of  pure 
reason ;  and  those  who  desire  the  assurance  of 
an  intimate  and  effectual  relation  with  the  Divine 
life,  and  who  look  to  this  for  strength  and  conso- 
lation, find  that  the  progress  of  scientific  know- 
ledge makes  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  obtain 
it  by  the  aid  of  any  merely  speculative  theism. 
The  feeling  of  trusting  dependence  which  was 
easy  for  the  primitive  tribes,  who  regarded  them- 
selves as  their  God's  peculiar  charge,  and  supposed 
Him  in  some  special  sense  to  dwell  among  them, 
is  not  easy  for  us ;  nor  does  it  tend  to  become 
easier.  We  can  no  longer  share  their  naive 
anthropomorphism.  We  search  out  God  with  eyes 
grown  old  in  studying  Nature,  with  minds  fatigued 
by  centuries  of  metaphysic,  and  imaginations  glutted 
with  material  infinities.  It  is  in  vain  that  we 
describe  Him  as  immanent  in  creation,  and  refuse  to 
reduce  Him  to  an  abstraction,  be  it  deistic  or  be  it 
pantheistic.  The  overwhelming  force  and  regularity 
of  the  great  natural  movements  dull  the  sharp 
impression  of  an  ever-present  Personality  deeply 
concerned  in  our  spiritual  well-being.  He  is  hidden, 
not  revealed,  in  the  multitude  of  phenomena,  and  as 
our  knowledge  of  phenomena  increases,  He  retreats 
out  of  all  realised  connection  with  us  farther  and  yet 
farther  into  the  illimitable  unknown. 

Then  it  is  that,  through  the  aid  of  Christian 
doctrine,  we  are  saved  from  the  distorting  in- 
fluences of  our  own  discoveries.     The  Incarnation 


A  PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION  347 

throws  the  whole  scheme  of  things,  as  we  are  too 
easily  apt  to  represent  it  to  ourselves,  into  a 
different  and  far  truer  proportion.  It  abruptly 
changes  the  whole  scale  on  which  we  might  be 
disposed  to  measure  the  magnitudes  of  the 
universe.  What  we  should  otherwise  think  great, 
we  now  perceive  to  be  relatively  small.  What 
we  should  otherwise  think  trifling,  we  now 
know  to  be  immeasurably  important.  And  the 
change  is  not  only  morally  needed,  but  is  philoso- 
phically justified.  Speculation  by  itself  should  be 
sufficient  to  convince  us  that,  in  the  sight  of  a 
righteous  God,  material  grandeur  and  moral  excel- 
lencies are  incommensurable  quantities  ;  and  that 
an  infinite  accumulation  of  the  one  cannot  compen- 
sate for  the  smallest  diminution  of  the  other.  Yet  I 
know  not  whether,  as  a  theistic  speculation,  this  truth 
could  effectually  maintain  itself  against  the  brute 
pressure  of  external  Nature.  In  the  world  looked 
at  by  the  light  of  simple  theism,  the  evidences  of 
God's  material  power  lie  about  us  on  every  side, 
daily  added  to  by  science,  universal,  overwhelming. 
The  evidences  of  His  moral  interest  have  to  be 
anxiously  extracted,  grain  by  grain,  through  the 
speculative  analysis  of  our  moral  nature.  Mankind, 
however,  are  not  given  to  speculative  analysis ; 
and  if  it  be  desirable  that  they  should  be  enabled  to 
obtain  an  imaginative  grasp  of  this  great  truth  ;  if 
they  need  to  have  brought  home  to  them  that,  in  the 
sight  of  God,  the  stability  of  the  heavens  is  of  less 


343  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

importance  than  the  moral  growth  of  a  human 
spirit,  I  know  not  how  this  end  could  be  more 
completely  attained  than  by  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Incarnation. 

A  somewhat  similar  train  of  thought  is  suggested 
by  the  progress  of  one  particular  branch  of  scientific 
investigation.  Mankind  can  never  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  dependence  of  mind  on  body.  The 
feebleness  of  infancy,  the  decay  of  age,  the  effects 
of  sickness,  fatigue  and  pain,  are  facts  too  obvious 
and  too  insistent  ever  to  have  passed  unnoticed. 
But  the  movement  of  discovery  has  prodigiously 
emphasised  our  sense  of  dependence  on  matter.  We 
now  know  that  it  is  no  loose  or  variable  connection 
which  ties  mind  to  body.  There  may,  indeed,  be 
neural  changes  which  do  not  issue  in  consciousness ; 
but  there  is  no  consciousness,  so  far  as  accepted 
observations  and  experiments  can  tell  us,  which  is 
not  associated  with  neural  changes.  Looked  at, 
therefore,  from  the  outside,  from  the  point  of  view 
necessarily  adopted  by  the  biologist,  the  psychic 
life  seems,  as  it  were,  but  an  intermittent  phosphor- 
escence accompanying  the  cerebral  changes  in  certain 
highly  organised  mammals.  And  science,  through 
countless  channels,  with  irresistible  force  drives 
home  to  each  one  of  us  the  lesson  that  we  are 
severally  bound  over  in  perpetual  servitude  to  a 
body  for  whose  existence  and  qualities  we  have  no 
responsibility  whatever. 

As  the  reader  is  well  aware,  views  like  these 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  349 

will  not  stand  critical  examination.  Of  all  creeds, 
materialism  is  the  one  which,  looked  at  from  the 
inside — from  the  point  of  view  of  knowledge  and 
the  knowing  Self — is  least  capable  of  being  philo- 
sophically defended,  or  even  coherently  stated. 
Nevertheless,  the  burden  of  the  body  is  not,  in 
practice,  to  be  disposed  of  by  any  mere  process  of 
critical  analysis.  From  birth  to  death,  without 
pause  or  respite,  it  encumbers  us  on  our  path.  We 
can  never  disentangle  ourselves  from  its  meshes, 
nor  divide  with  it  the  responsibility  for  our  joint 
performances.  Conscience  may  tell  us  that  we 
ought  to  control  it,  and  that  we  can.  But  science, 
hinting  that,  after  all,  we  are  but  its  product  and 
its  plaything,  receives  ominous  support  from  our 
experiences  of  mankind.  Philosophy  may  assure 
us  that  the  account  of  body  and  mind  given  by 
materialism  is  neither  consistent  nor  intelligible.  Yet 
body  remains  the  most  fundamental  and  all-per- 
vading fact  with  which  mind  has  got  to  deal,  the  one 
from  which  it  can  least  easily  shake  itself  free,  the 
one  that  most  complacently  lends  itself  to  every 
theory  destructive  of  high  endeavour. 

Now,  what  is  wanted  here  is  not  abstract  specu- 
lation or  negative  dialectic.  These,  indeed,  may 
lend  us  their  aid,  but  they  are  not  very  powerful 
allies  in  this  particular  species  of  warfare.  They 
can  assure  us,  with  a  well-grounded  confidence,  that 
materialism  is  wrong,  but  they  have  (as  I  think) 
nothing  satisfactory  to  put  in  its  place,  and  cannot 


35o  A  PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION 

pretend  to  any  theoretic  explanation  which  shall 
cover  all  the  facts.  What  we  need,  then,  is  some- 
thing that  shall  appeal  to  men  of  flesh  and  blood, 
struggling  with  the  temptations  and  discouragements 
which  flesh  and  blood  is  heir  to  ;  confused  and 
baffled  by  theories  of  heredity ;  sure  that  the 
physiological  view  represents  at  least  one  aspect  of 
the  truth ;  not  sure  how  any  larger  and  more  con- 
soling truth  can  be  welded  on  to  it ;  yet  swayed 
towards  the  materialist  side  less,  it  may  be,  by 
materialist  reasoning  than  by  the  inner  confirmation 
which  a  humiliating  experience  gives  them  of  their 
own  subjection  to  the  body. 

What  support  does  the  belief  in  a  Deity  ineffably 
remote  from  all  human  conditions  bring  to  men  thus 
hesitating  whether  they  are  to  count  themselves 
as  beasts  that  perish,  or  among  the  Sons  of  God  ? 
What  bridge  can  be  found  to  span  the  immeasurable 
gulf  which  separates  Infinite  Spirit  from  creatures 
who  seem  little  more  than  physiological  accidents  ? 
What  faith  is  there,  other  than  the  Incarnation, 
which  will  enable  us  to  realise  that,  however  far 
apart,  they  are  not  hopelessly  divided  ?  The  intel- 
lectual perplexities  which  haunt  us  in  that  dim  region 
where  mind  and  matter  meet  may  not  be  thus  allayed. 
But  they  who  think  with  me  that,  though  it  is  a 
hard  thing  for  us  to  believe  that  we  are  made  in  the 
likeness  of  God,  it  is  yet  a  very  necessary  thing, 
will  not  be  anxious  to  deny  that  an  effectual  trust  in 
this  great  truth,  a   full    satisfaction  of  this   ethical 


A  PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION  351 

need,  are  among  the  natural  fruits  of   a  Christian 
theory  of  the  world. 

One  more  topic  there  is,  of  the  same  family  as 
those  with  which  we  have  just  been  dealing,  to 
which,  before  concluding,  I  must  briefly  direct  the 
reader's  attention.  I  have  already  said  something 
about  what  is  known  as  the  'problem  of  evil,'  and 
the  immemorial  difficulty  which  it  throws  in  the  way 
of  a  completely  coherent  theory  of  the  world  on  a 
religious  or  moral  basis.  I  do  not  suggest  now  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  supplies  any  philo- 
sophic solution  of  this  difficulty.  I  content  myself 
with  pointing  out  that  the  difficulty  is  much  less  op- 
pressive under  the  Christian  than  under  any  simpler 
form  of  Theism  ;  and  that  though  it  may  retain  un- 
diminished whatever  speculative  force  it  possesses,  its 
moral  grip  is  loosened,  and  it  no  longer  parches  up  the 
springs  of  spiritual  hope  or  crushes  moral  aspiration. 

For  where  precisely  does  the  difficulty  lie  ?  It 
lies  in  the  supposition  that  an  all-powerful  Deity  has 
chosen  out  of  an  infinite,  or  at  least  an  unknown, 
number  of  possibilities  to  create  a  world  in  which 
pain  is  a  prominent,  and  apparently  an  ineradicable, 
element.  His  action  on  this  view  is,  so  to  speak, 
gratuitous.  He  might  have  done  otherwise  ;  He 
has  done  thus.  He  might  have  created  sentient 
beings  capable  of  nothing  but  happiness  ;  He  has  in 
fact  created  them  prone  to  misery,  and  subject  by 
their  very  constitution  and  circumstances  to  extreme 
possibilities  of  physical  pain  and  mental  affliction. 


352  A   PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION 

How  can  One  of  Whom  this  can  be  said  excite  our 
love  ?  How  can  He  claim  our  obedience  ?  How 
can  He  be  a  fitting  object  of  praise,  reverence,  and 
worship  ?  So  runs  the  familiar  argument,  accepted 
by  some  as  a  permanent  element  in  their  melancholy 
philosophy  ;  wrung  from  others  as  a  cry  of  anguish 
under  the  sudden  stroke  of  bitter  experience. 

This  reasoning  is  in  essence  an  explication  of 
what  is  supposed  to  be  involved  in  the  attribute  of 
Omnipotence  ;  and  the  sting  of  its  conclusion  lies  in 
the  inferred  indifference  of  God  to  the  sufferings  of 
His  creatures.  There  are,  therefore,  two  points  at 
which  it  may  be  assailed.  We  may  argue,  in  the 
first  place,  that  in  dealing  with  subjects  so  far  above 
our  reach,  it  is  in  general  the  height  of  philosophic 
temerity  to  squeeze  out  of  every  predicate  the  last 
significant  drop  it  can  apparently  be  forced  to  yield  ; 
or  drive  all  the  arguments  it  suggests  to  their 
extreme  logical  conclusions.  And,  in  particular,  it 
may  be  urged  that  it  is  erroneous,  perhaps  even  un- 
meaning, to  say  that  the  universality  of  Omnipotence 
includes  the  power  to  do  that  which  is  irrational  ; 
and  that,  without  knowing  the  Whole,  we  cannot  say 
of  any  part  whether  it  is  rational  or  not. 

These  are  metaphysical  considerations  which, 
so  long  as  they  are  used  critically,  and  not  dog- 
matically, negatively,  not  positively,  seem  to  me 
to  have  force.  But  there  is  a  second  line  of  attack, 
on  which  it  is  more  my  business  to  insist.  I  have 
already  pointed  out  that  ethics  cannot  permanently 


A   PROVISIONAL  UNIFICATION  353 

flourish  side  by  side  with  a  creed  which  represents 
God  as  indifferent  to  pain  and  sin  ;  so  that,  if  our 
provisional  philosophy  is  to  include  morality  within 
its  circuit  (and  what  harmony  of  knowledge  would 
that  be  which  did  not  ?),  the  conclusions  which 
apparently  follow  from  the  co-existence  of  Omni- 
potence and  of  Evil  are  not  to  be  accepted.  Yet 
this  speculative  reply  is,  after  all,  but  a  fair-weather 
argument ;  too  abstract  easily  to  move  mankind  at 
large,  too  frail  for  the  support,  even  of  a  philo- 
sopher, in  moments  of  extremity.  Of  what  use  is 
it  to  those  who,  under  the  stress  of  sorrow,  are 
permitting  themselves  to  doubt  the  goodness  of 
God,  that  such  doubts  must  inevitably  tend  to 
wither  virtue  at  the  root  ?  No  such  conclusion  will 
frighten  them.  They  have  already  almost  reached  it. 
Of  what  worth,  they  cry,  is  virtue  in  a  world  where 
sufferings  like  theirs  fall  alike  on  the  just  and  on 
the  unjust  ?  For  themselves,  they  know  only  that 
they  are  solitary  and  abandoned  ;  victims  of  a  Power 
too  strong  for  them  to  control,  too  callous  for  them 
to  soften,  too  far  for  them  to  reach,  deaf  to  suppli- 
cation, blind  to  pain.  Tell  them,  with  certain 
theologians,  that  their  misfortunes  are  explained 
and  justified  by  an  hereditary  taint ;  tell  them,  with 
certain  philosophers,  that,  could  they  understand 
the  world  in  its  completeness,  their  agony  would 
show  itself  an  element  necessary  to  the  harmony 
of  the  Whole,  and  they  will  think  you  are 
mocking  them.     Whatever  be  the  worth  of  specu- 

A  A 


354  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

lations  like  these,  it  is  not  in  the  moments  when 
they  are  most  required  that  they  come  effectually 
to  our  rescue.  What  is  needed  is  such  a  living 
faith  in  God's  relation  to  Man  as  shall  leave 
no  place  for  that  helpless  resentment  against  the 
appointed  Order  so  apt  to  rise  within  us  at  the 
sight  of  undeserved  pain.  And  this  faith  is 
possessed  by  those  who  vividly  realise  the  Christian 
form  of  Theism.  For  they  worship  One  Who  is  no 
remote  contriver  of  a  universe  to  whose  ills  He  is 
indifferent.  If  they  suffer,  did  He  not  on  their 
account  suffer  also  ?  If  suffering  falls  not  always 
on  the  most  guilty,  was  He  not  innocent  ?  Shall 
they  cry  aloud  that  the  world  is  ill-designed  for 
their  convenience,  when  He  for  their  sakes  sub- 
jected Himself  to  its  conditions?  It  is  true  that 
beliefs  like  these  do  not  in  any  narrow  sense  resolve 
our  doubts  nor  provide  us  with  explanations.  But 
they  give  us  something  better  than  many  explana- 
tions. For  they  minister,  or  rather  the  Reality 
behind  them  ministers,  to  one  of  our  deepest  ethical 
needs :  to  a  need  which,  far  from  showing  signs  of 
diminution,  seems  to  grow  with  the  growth  of  civili- 
sation, and  to  touch  us  ever  more  keenly  as  the 
hardness  of  an  earlier  time  dissolves  away. 


Here,  then,  on  the  threshold  of  Christian  Theology, 
I  bring  my  task  to  a  conclusion.  I  feel,  on  looking 
back  over  the  completed  work,  even  more  strongly 
than    I  felt   during  its  progress,  how  hard  was  the 


A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION  355 

task  I  have  undertaken,  and  how  far  beyond  my 
powers  successfully  to  accomplish.  For  I  have 
aimed  at  nothing  less  than  to  show,  within  a 
reasonable  compass  and  in  a  manner  to  be  under- 
stood by  all,  how,  in  face  of  the  complex  tendencies 
which  sway  this  strange  age  of  ours,  we  may  best 
draw  together  our  beliefs  into  a  comprehensive 
unity  which  shall  possess  at  least  a  relative  and  pro- 
visional stability.  In  so  bold  an  attempt  I  may  well 
have  failed.  Yet,  whatever  be  the  particular  weak- 
nesses and  defects  which  mar  the  success  of  my 
endeavours,  three  or  four  broad  principles  emerge 
from  the  discussion,  the  essential  importance  of 
which  I  find  it  impossible  to  doubt,  whatever  errors 
I  may  have  made  in  their  application. 

1.  It  seems  beyond  question  that  any  system 
which,  with  our  present  knowledge  and,  it  may  be, 
our  existing  faculties,  we  are  able  to  construct  must 
surfer  from  obscurities,  from  defects  of  proof,  and 
from  incoherences.  Narrow  it  down  to  bare  science 
— and  no  one  has  seriously  proposed  to  reduce  it 
further — you  will  still  find  all  three,  and  in  plenty. 

2.  No  unification  of  belief  of  the  slightest  theo- 
retical value  can  take  place  on  a  purely  scientific 
basis — on  a  basis,  I  mean,  of  induction  from  par- 
ticular experiences,  whether  '  external '  or  '  internal.' 

3.  No  philosophy  or  theory  of  knowledge  (epis- 
temology)  can  be  satisfactory  which  does  not  find 
room  within  it  for  the  quite  obvious,  but  not  suffi- 
ciently considered  fact  that,  su  far  as  empirical  science 
can  tell  us  anything  about  the  matter,  most  of  the 


356  A   PROVISIONAL   UNIFICATION 

proximate  causes  of  belief,  and  all  its  ultimate  causes, 
are  non-rational  in  their  character. 

4.  No  unification  of  beliefs  can  be  practically  ade- 
quate which  does  not  include  ethical  beliefs  as  well 
as  scientific  ones  ;  nor  which  refuses  to  count  among 
•  ethical  beliefs,  not  merely  those  which  have  imme- 
diate reference  to  moral  commands,  but  those  also 
which  make  possible  moral  sentiments,  ideals  and 
aspirations,  and  which  satisfy  our  ethical  needs. 
Any  system  which,  when  worked  out  to  its  legitimate 
issues,  fails  to  effect  this  object  can  afford  no  per- 
manent habitation  for  the  spirit  of  man. 

To  enforce,  illustrate,  and  apply  these  principles 
has  been  the  main  object  of  the  preceding  pages. 
How  far  I  have  succeeded  in  showing  that  the  least 
incomplete  unification  open  to  us  must  include  the 
fundamental  elements  of  Theology,  and  of  Christian 
Theology,  I  leave  it  for  others  to  determine ;  re- 
peating only  the  conviction,  more  than  once  ex- 
pressed in  the  body  of  this  Essay,  that  it  is  not 
explanations  which  survive,  but  the  things  which 
are  explained ;  not  theories,  but  the  things  about 
which  we  theorise  ;  and  that,  therefore,  no  failure 
on  my  part  r-m  imperil  the  great  truths,  be  they 
religious,  ethical,  or  scientific,  whose  interdepen- 
dence I  have  endeavoured  to  establish. 


THE    END 


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